


The Last Moomintroll

by keire_ke



Category: X-Men: First Class (2011) - Fandom
Genre: Gen, Moomins, no AU is too weird
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-05
Updated: 2013-03-04
Packaged: 2017-12-04 08:35:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 27,125
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/708718
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/keire_ke/pseuds/keire_ke
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Warning: this is a Moominfic. Erik thought he was the last troll to wander the earth, until he stumbled into a secluded valley, high in the mountains.</p><p> </p><p>  <a href="http://keire-ke.tumblr.com/post/44582238158/behold-the-moominfic">Comes with art.</a></p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> [This fic comes with art.](http://keire-ke.tumblr.com/post/44582238158/behold-the-moominfic) Because in this fandom no AU is too weird.
> 
> Betaed by the lovely Winterhill!

_The wind outside howled. Now and then a door slammed or a shutter hit the window frame and I would startle, but distraction was pricy and I could only afford so much of it. Time was always precious to me and I had been looking forward to this evening for quite some time. Besides, the weather was despicable enough that even thieves bundled down in their cosy taverns; there would be no customers. I could work on the exquisite moonstone and frame it with the white gold it deserved. The designs had been in my mind for a while now, creeping around the stone in my dreams as well as in my waking hours. The finished product would be an artefact straight from a fairy-tale, the kind of object kings and princes go to war for, I was sure of that._

_The goal was a glamorous one, but the job itself tedious, but it was the kind of tedium that drew the keenest of minds, made them disregard all else, focus on what was there, on the minute shifting of light and the pliable metals, held in tiny tongs. My clever fingers and I had been masters of this craft for a while now: the trick lay in not allowing the plan to spoil the moment. Every tiniest tendril of gold I only bent a little and then moved on, letting the ornamentation develop organically, rather than curve each inch by hand according to a precise instruction. This was a risky task, to be sure, for while the fingers of a true master could be trusted to find the perfect form, the trust must never be absolute, and it happened now and then than a day’s, week’s work proved unsatisfactory. Nonetheless, I persevered, for in the occasion that the trust paid off, the product was a true work of art, one that gave the impression it was never touched by a human hand._

_I couldn’t help but remember then the little troll who had brought the stone to me; his serious expression and the frown, which perpetually marred his little face. I scarcely remember the times when troll handiwork was available, but I know that there had been such a time, during my grandmother’s lifetime, that one could wander down the town market and haggle with trolls over the price of trinkets of inhuman beauty. I myself have only ever seen this one troll, not for a lack of trying. I wondered, now, if he was someplace warm and safe, or whether he was steadfastly braving the storm, searching for his kind. There have been rumours that there were no more trolls in existence, that they all not so much died as withdrew into the legends and myths. I knew this much to be false, naturally, but now and then, on nights such as this, I would wonder whether the one troll I knew to be alive had a place he could call his home, or whether the stories had cast him out, dooming his life to lonesome wandering._

_It was a prophetic worry that assaulted me in that moment. The beginning of any ornamentation is to make the object in question smooth, and so I picked up the polisher, which emitted the most unpleasant whizz when in operation. I suffered it out of necessity, but that night I was not alone to suffer it: there was a squeak that sounded like it might have come from the throat of a large cat, and something leapt out of the shadows to plant itself between myself and the stone._

_I feel no shame in admitting I dropped the polisher and covered my mouth in fright, for the sight was utterly unexpected. Most of the creature was swathed in ill-fitting clothes, not a strange sight in itself, given the weather, but the face was so alien I am ashamed to admit I was startled out of my seat. The eyes were large, round, and not unlike gems in their colour and shape, although they were living gems, glistening with wetness and emotion. The skin around them was tawny, covered by short fur of similar colour. That was all I managed to observe before another creature joined this strange apparition on the table, one that was more welcome for its familiarity._

_“Oh,” I said in relief. “You brought a friend! I was worried about you, you know.”_

_“I need buy,” the troll said, indicating the moonstone, while his companion curled itself around the vice that held it, emitting the same squeaky noises. I spied a pair of mittens fluttering to the floor, and then, between my little troll’s shoulder and that of the other, I saw a pair of furry paws stroke the shimmering surface. “I bring rocks. Many.”_

_“You want the moonstone back?” I asked, merely to make sure. “But why?”_

_He looked troubled by my question and turned to his strange friend for counsel. Finally he looked at me and said, “Yes. Very important. Need buy.” Out of his pocket he withdrew the leather pouch he carried, and let the contents spill onto my work table._

_I must first state that whenever the troll would visit he would often bring with him a few gemstones of astonishing clarity, every one of which would be enough to buy my shop. They were each flawless and large enough to make a whole set of jewellery. All of them, however, paled in the face of the selection spilled on my table now and even though they were all rough, with most of their brilliance hidden, the sheer possibility made me breathless. There were rubies the size of hazelnuts, sapphires blue as the midday sky; every one of those could make me a rich woman._

_The furry troll – I presumed it was a troll as well, though the only one I had met before then was almost human-like in appearance, and the stories indicated that should be the case – had managed to work out the intricacies of the vice, because I heard the screws move and soon the creature was turning towards me, cradling the stone in its paws like it was precious, almost like it was alive. It gazed at me with tender supplication in its eyes, huddling close to its friend, and well, I am not, nor have I ever been, heartless._

_“You can have it,” I said firmly. It had been exchanged for a hundred pounds, but then I have only taken it because the troll insisted he would have none of my help without pay, and I am ashamed to admit I have previously taken some of the pay he offered without compensating him properly, as I endeavour to keep as little valuables in the shop as possible, and thus had no ready money to offer, and he would not wait._

_I must have been in a state of shock, because it was only when the door to my workshop opened wide did it occur to me that I heard the chime over the main entrance._

Excerpt from _The Moonstone of the Valley_ , a beloved children’s classic, by Moira MacTaggart.

*****

The city rarely sleeps. Erik has learned this the hard way, but he has learned it, so he slips through the shadows of back alleys and, if he must, through the sewage system. Humans rarely venture down there at night so he is safe. He can barely breathe, but he is safe. Luckily, this is an emergency, if those two words can even go together. It’s an emergency, because his knife broke and he needs to mend it, and humans make wonderful steel things, which is why he needs human money, which is where the luck comes in: he knows how to get it with minimal fuss.

The cover of the manhole is very heavy and by the time Erik manages to wedge it up and aside, he is sweating. Stupid, overgrown humans, he thinks, as he hauls himself out of the tunnel and onto the backstreet. He’s in luck: the lights in the shop are still on and the street is empty. Not that it has ever been occupied when he walks it – he the cobbles may pretend to be silent, but they whisper among themselves all the same, and humans walk like mountain-trolls. He doesn’t knock, but instead he slips through the door, letting the human inside hear it click shut.

She looks up sharply from her worktable and her mouth curves into a smile when she encounters nothing on eyelevel and looks down.

“Good evening,” she says, smiling. Erik nods at her solemnly and pulls out his broken knife. “I see. That won’t be a problem, but you will have to wait until tomorrow – I already put out the fires.”

“I wait,” he says gruffly and starts riffling through his backpack, in search of his small purse. The woman – her name is Moira – moves back and lets him clamber onto to the workbench. He stares at the ring she is working on for a few moments. It is big enough to fit three of his fingers, but it’s for a human, so no problem there. The scattering of small diamonds on its surface twitters at him merrily and he smiles a little. “I pay,” he says, emptying the purse onto the table. Six small rocks tumble out, clean as he could make them with the knife, and following them is an oval moonstone, larger than two of his fists put together. It’s perfectly smooth and lovely, its voice is both high and melodic, and under different circumstances Erik wouldn’t give it away – these are a rare enough find that he prefers to keep them, but not so rare he can’t bear to part with one – but he needs his knife and Moira doesn’t like it if he brings too many of the smaller rocks.

True to form, she gasps when she sees what he brought and approaches the table with a sparkle in her gaze. “My goodness, such stones! They are absolutely beautiful.” She handles each one with loving care, which is perhaps the only reason Erik picked her when he decided he needed to deal with humans at all. She loves rocks and the rocks love her as much as any rock can love a human. It’s important for judging the character of a human, as every troll knows. 

It’s not a happy thought, that one, because it reminds Erik that he is the only troll to know that. He is, in fact, the only troll to know anything at all, as the others are all dead.

“They are beautiful,” Moira says with longing in her gaze. She has picked up the moonstone and is turning it over in her hands. “How much money do you need?”

“Pay for the mending of the knife,” Erik says. “Sleep tonight.” He understands the human tongue better than he speaks it, but he understands humans less. Asking money for sleeping! No self-respecting troll would stoop so low, but humans had houses in which one paid for sleeping. Then again, the fact that he, a troll, understands money at all is in itself fairly remarkable. 

“I told you many times, you bring far too much. I would charge you ten pounds for fixing the knife and three for sleeping in the attic, you know that. This alone,” she holds up the adularescent moonstone, “is worth at least a hundred pounds. The others a lot more.”

“I pay,” Erik insists. He will not have debts to pay a human. The rocks are very pretty and he hates to see them in the hands of one of them, but he needs his knife more.

Moira sighs. “I’ll take this,” she says, indicating the moonstone. “I wanted to try something outside of jewellery and tools, for once. I should have just enough money in the box to make up for the difference if you think a hundred is a fair price.”

Erik shrugs. He understands numbers, but money is just ridiculous. The last time Moira gave him papers, and what could paper be worth? He didn’t argue then and he doesn’t plan on arguing now, so when she counts out seventeen coins he simply drops them into the purse with the other rocks. The coins are nasty – dirty metal which has no home, which serves no purpose and does not belong. He will get rid of it as soon as he is out of the city. It’s best not to do it inside, or people notice and some of them might even follow. He made that mistake the first time he went into town, and he narrowly escaped with his life then. Fortunately, the humans feared the highlands and didn’t follow him up the mountain, but he would much rather not repeat the experience.

Moira wraps the moonstone in a cloth and carefully lays it in a drawer, stroking its smooth surface as she does. Erik knows the stone will be safe with her. He has taken the time to track the other stones he brought previously, and all of them were worn by people, close to their skin, where they were warm and happy.

“Do you want to sleep now?” she asks, and Erik nods. He’s not really tired, but if he curls up now, he can keep vigil for a few more hours, to make sure everything is normal. Moira shows him to the loft, where among the hay Erik finds his favourite spot – there’s even a blanket. He curls up in the middle of the sweet-smelling mound and closes his eyes, even though she can no longer see him. He stays awake long enough to hear her leave and come up once more, to deposit something on the floor, after which Erik sleeps.

He wakes with the sun, though it’s hard to see it rise through the early morning mist. There’s no point in going down that early, as Moira won’t have started the fires yet. The thing she left there last night is a plate, right next to the hay, covered with a napkin, and on it there is a piece of sweet bread with raisins and an apple. Erik eats it mechanically. For human food the bread is palatable, if a little chewy, but the apple is tart and fresh, and it is a genuine pleasure. 

An hour or two later, when he hears the town come awake, Erik shakes the blanket out, folds it, and brushes hay from his clothes and hair. He takes his backpack and goes downstairs, pausing at the bathroom to wash his face and run wet hands through his hair. The weather will soon be warm enough to bathe outdoors, and how he looks forward to a long, luxurious bath in a warm woodland pond. Throughout winter and early spring he keeps himself clean by means of snow and water heated over a fire, but, like most trolls, he loves a long soak in steaming water. Hot springs are too rare to count on them for regular ablutions, after all, and while Moira would no doubt offer him the use of her bathtub, Erik doesn’t like the echoes in the metal pipes, which surround the bathroom. They are shrill and rude, and he won’t undress in their presence.

Erik puts on his hat and sneaks into the smithy, where Moira is getting the fires started. He watches her move through the smithy, pulling out hammers and tongs. When she puts the pieces of the knife in the oven Erik steps out from the shadows. He trusts Moira, but he wants to see the knife be repaired. He loves the knife dearly and the knife loves him, and while he cannot repair it himself, he will watch and listen as it gets remade. He settles close to where Moira works and watches as with every blow of the hammer the red-hot metal fuses together, and all too soon she is plunging it into a bucket of cold water. The steam hisses as the metal fights the water, drawing closer together, reshaping itself into Erik’s knife. 

“That should do it,” Moira says, satisfied, testing the blade against the anvil. Erik doesn’t need her words to know, but it is nice that she is aware of what she works with. Most humans aren’t. “Let me just sharpen it, and you are good to go.”

The whetting wheel is ominous in its creaking, but Erik sidles closer all the same, catching the sparks in his hands. They burn for a moment, but leave no marks and he smiles. The knife will serve well.

*****

He leaves the town as soon as it is dark, clambering for the outskirts, where few humans venture. The rocks start that way, jagged and unforgiving, or at least they would have been, if he had stupid soft fingers like the humans did. He climbs, clinging close to mother rock, secure in the knowledge that she never wants him to fall. He climbs until the city is far enough to seem like a dream, which it almost is. There is a winding path that would take him to the same destination, but he prefers the climb – he feels safe like this, clinging to a wall of stone, with the wind howling in his ears. 

He reaches the plateau eventually and takes a moment to breathe and look down. If he strains his eyes he can see the houses in the distance, and the clear border between the fields and the stones. Erik turns away and walks, unhurried, through the deserted path high above the human world. There is no plan in his mind, no destination, and even if there was, what of it? There is no place to go. He sticks close to this city because of Moira, and even then close is a relative term: he is rarely more than a month’s worth of a journey away these days, though he usually travels south, so this is only the second time he ventured on this mountain, and the previous time it was autumn, so he needed to hurry back due to the snow. He takes his time to explore now: he wanders high in the mountains for a few days, until his supplies run low and he has to search for roots and berries among the stones.

On the fifth day the clouds begin gathering over his head, very nearly catching him unawares. He is high enough now that the rain is cold, even though it’s early summer. Far too cold, in fact. Erik holds out his palm and a few shards of ice bounce off his skin. He looks around wildly and there, at the edge of his vision, still far, he spots her: the Frost is coming. He begins running and follows the rocks underneath his feet; they whisper of shelter and safety, not far now, only a little ways ahead. They are right: even though his eyes are closed against the icy cold, he feels the biting rain stop abruptly, as though an invisible hand has taken it away. Erik spares a moment to breathe and watch the grey curtains fall over the mouth of the cave, cutting out his escape route. He withdraws deeper, into the foggy interior, shaking with cold. There is a blanket on the bottom of his pack, a blanket which should still be mostly dry, and a bit of firewood and coal, so that he can warm his hands and feet. He can sleep in the cave tonight and cross the mountains in the morning. Except, when he turns, he doesn’t find a wall, or a black tunnel, leading into the mountain, or at least not only that. There is a tunnel, yes, and it is dark and winding, and full of grey mist, but far in the distance there is a spot of light. 

Erik lets his tired feet take him towards it, because the light doesn’t look like fire or a human invention. It is the light of day, which is very strange, because it seemed like the clouds were all over – but then again he is walking uphill and the clouds are heavy with rain and ice, so maybe he is moving past them. Light means sun and warmth, far more than he could find even with the lump of coal he has in his backpack. Maybe even firewood!

He emerges out of the cave into warm sunlight and stares, numbed by the vision before him.

High above there is the blue sky, and the sun traversing it with unhurried steadiness. Erik takes off his hat and shakes the water off. The grass, greener than all the jewels of the world, is warm and dry. It hasn’t rained here, he realises and with lightness in his heart he puts the hat back on and runs up the hill, from where he can look at the valley before him. It is beautiful; the sun paints it blue and green, the river sparkles in the distance and there is no sign of human dwelling anywhere. Erik wants to cry with delight at such a discovery. There is a forest not far from where he’s standing, a forest of pines and oaks, where he will find firewood and where his tent will be protected from the weather. He will be warm tonight, like he hasn’t been since he left Moira’s smithy.

First, he should take advantage of the sun and dry his clothes and blanket, and eat what’s left of his supplies. In such a lovely place he is sure to find plenty of food, so he might as well have his lunch now, while basking in the warm sunlight. He kneels on the ground and bends to open his backpack when he senses movement. His head springs up and his hand reaches for the knife.

“Hello. I haven’t seen you before,” someone says, and Erik stares, uncomprehending, because it is not the clucking speech of humans that is being uttered, but the melodious tongue of the trollkin. It stands to reason, as the creature before him can never be mistaken for a human. Erik’s gaze first falls on a rotund belly, covered with tawny fur, over which there are folded paws the fingers of which lightly brush each other. Then Erik looks up and stares at the creature’s face, round and very nearly featureless: its mouth is hidden in the fur (it is smiling – somehow Erik doesn’t doubt that), and the eyes are round and blue like polished sapphires, the kind that Moira puts on golden bands and intricate chains and gives to handsome ladies to keep warm. The eyes are fixed on Erik and they glow with a strange light, which is different the reflection of the sun. In fact, if Erik was any expert at all, he would say these eyes are aglow with happiness, but then when was the last time Erik saw happiness? Shadowing the eyes there’s dark brown hair, thick enough to be as warm as Erik’s woolly hat and on top of it there is something the size of a swallow: it is very blue, with red streaks around the mouth and golden eyes.

“Hello,” Erik says cautiously.

“I haven’t seen you before,” it repeats, and the paws fidget in excitement. “I haven’t seen anybody come this way before. There’re only Glass Mountains that way. It’s dangerous.” It squats by Erik and touches his backpack and then his sweater. Erik feels the gentle pressure where the paw rests and the shock squashes the urge to shrug it off. “You’re wet.”

“It’s raining on the other side of the mountain,” he says. 

“Come quickly, you could catch a cold! I have a fire and blankets and I have food – I have a lot of food. Raven likes to try different things so I make a lot.” The troll beams and the blue thing on its head spreads its translucent wings and beats them a couple of times, before emitting a high-pitched squeak. “Oh! I am so sorry! I completely forgot. My name is Charles and this is Raven.” The troll indicates the blue creature, which sits atop its head. “Will you come? My home is very close.”

Erik stares at the small, tawny paw extended in his direction and then at the round blue eyes, which are still fixed on him. “Yes, alright.”

Charles beams and claps. He – Erik decides he might as well think of it as a him – urges Erik up and across the meadow, through the sweet-smelling grass and into the wood. The scent of pine is everywhere; they walk on a bed of brown needles, which cover a thick layer of moss. Erik sinks as he walks, but Charles’ feet, although small, are nearly round when he spreads his toes and so he pads over the moss like it was a beaten tract.

There’s something else, too. Every one of his steps is followed by a swish of a… tail. Erik can’t help himself, and he grabs the wisp as it swings past him, brushing the surprisingly fine hair through his fingers. 

He is not prepared for Charles’ squeal and leap behind a tree, nor is he prepared for the blue streak, which so far seemed to be firmly attached to Charles’ head, to come flying at him, ready to bite. 

“I’m sorry,” he cries, deflecting the assault with his battered backpack. He takes a step back and trips, landing safely on the soft forest floor, still shielding his head. “Did I hurt you?”

Charles peeks at him from behind the ancient pine, cradling the wisp of tail in his paws. The tiny blue creature returns to its perch, never ceasing to glare at Erik.

“No. You surprised me.” Slowly, he lets the tail fall from his grip. “I thought I was the only one,” he said at last, coming closer to help Erik up. They stand there for a moment, Erik’s hands in Charles’ paws, the backpack at their feet, staring at each other.

Erik doesn’t want to spoil the mood, but Charles is furry and naked and obviously he is some kind of a troll, because they are speaking the same language, but they couldn’t be more different, so he probably is the only one after all. “I’m the only one, too,” he says. He doesn’t try to smile and neither does Charles, because it’s not nice or sweet or funny, or any other reason there could be to smile. Instead they just stare at one another, holding hands, breathing the scent of pines and moist earth. They are both alone, but at least now they are alone together.

Then Erik sneezes and Charles jumps. “I’m so sorry! Let’s go, it’s only a little further.”

He is not wrong. By Erik’s standards they were practically on the doorstep, as it takes them less than two hundred paces to reach another meadow, framed on one side by the forest they just exited, and on another by a wall of stone. Where the two meet there is a building: it’s not a hut, as Erik would expect, hidden from view, but a proper troll house, narrow and three stories tall, with a red tiled roof and a chimney. To the side there is a patch of freshly turned earth, half obscured by plants, and all along the porch there are sunflowers.

“I’ll put the kettle on,” Charles says happily, pulling Erik towards the entrance. “Would you like a bath? I’ll get the fire started, it burns beautifully, the bath will be ready in no time. You can’t get sick now.” He bypasses the house entirely and instead very nearly manhandles Erik into a small hut, which is propped against the wall of stone. The hut looks ancient, older even than the house, and it is constructed entirely out of pale wood, most of which looks to be oak, but there are hefty bits of pine laid in, too. Inside there is a low, wide fireplace, carved out of the rock, and above it a wooden tub. In the far corner there is a pipe that presumably pumps the smoke outside.

“Thank you,” Erik says, embarrassed by the earnest delight that sends Charles hurtling at the stove in the corner. He piles up the wood over the crate and, with a handful of kindling, gets a fire going. Erik would be content to just sit in front of it and hold out his hands until the heat dried the clothes on his back, but Charles is running around again, tugging at various bits of wood, and the bathtub begins to fill with water.

“It will be a minute,” Charles tells him and opens a cabinet on the wall, which is filled with fluffy towels. Charles struggles to pick up what looks like a stack of them, and Erik understands why when it ends up in his arms – it is just one towel, it’s almost as heavy as his whole backpack, but it is soft as anything and smells of freshness. 

They stare at each other for a moment, over the expanses of the sun-coloured towel, until Erik coughs. “Could you maybe wait outside?”

Charles tilts his head, confused. The tiny blue creature on top of his head belches out a ring of smoke and averts its gaze, presumably to indicate the boring nature of the proceedings. “Why?” he asks.

“I need to undress.”

There is more confusion. Eventually Erik sighs, unfolds the towel and covers himself with it, intending to get out of his clothes underneath. Charles is completely naked, and by the looks of it proper troll modesty doesn’t apply to his kind of trolls, so it makes sense he wouldn’t understand about clothes. Luckily for Erik’s troll modesty, Charles turns and begins to carefully pile more kindling on the fire, fanning it out into a proper flame. Erik pulls off his hat and is trying to work out how to wiggle out of his sweater while staying under the towel, when Charles turns back to him and yips in surprise.

“What happened to your hair?” he cries. He is at Erik’s side in an instant, running his paw through Erik’s short, coppery hair, flat from being stuck under a hat for so long. “It was so colourful!”

“That was a hat,” Erik says, holding it up for evidence. Charles looks down at the knitted wool, then back to Erik, then at the wool again.

“Oh,” he says. “Oh! I remember. This is clothes. I’ve never seen clothes! I read in books that some trolls wear them, but I’ve never seen any. Are they nice? What are they made of? Where do they come from?” Then, before any of the questions can be answered, the good humour goes up in flames. “I don’t have any clothes and this is wet.”

“That’s okay, I have some packed.” It’s not much, and it will likely be damp, but Erik is sure he has an undershirt and a pair of trousers. The old sweater, too, which he packed away for emergencies. It has a hole in it, but here in the valley the weather wasn’t very cold. 

Meanwhile, the fire underneath the bathtub begins to hiss and spit, and Charles rushes to pile more wood inside. He was right about the time it would take to get the bath ready – by the time he is done arranging the logs to his liking there is a light sheen of steam rising from the water. “It should be ready in a few moments,” Charles says. He looks delighted, like it is his job to get cold people into baths as soon as possible. “Here’s the soap and you know where to find more towels. I’ll go and make some food – are you hungry?”

Erik nods. He has last eaten around dawn, and it was only a thin slice of stale bread and an apple and before that another slice of bread for supper. He is very hungry. 

Charles folds his paws again, and his tail swishes behind him, left, right, and back again. He stares at Erik and then he takes a step closer and lays his soft paw on Erik’s hand, where he clutches the towel to his chest. “I’m so glad you found me,” he says and walks out the door. Erik watches him go, nonplussed, but the bath beckons with a lure that won’t be denied. He strips quickly, now that he is alone, and folds his clothes on the stool by the wall. Charles has been very kind; he will certainly let him wash and dry them later. He also goes through his backpack in search of the spare set, which he lays out on the floor in front of the fire. They are only a little damp, and the heat should take care of that soon.

Erik sinks into the bath with a soft sigh. The warmth welcomes him, curls around his bones and muscles, coddling him into a state of drowsiness. It’s a big tub, enough to fit a whole family of trolls, and it is deep, too – were it not for the seats along the rim Erik could stand and be covered to the shoulder. He paddles across, just for fun, and reaches for the soap Charles left out for him. It smells faintly of flowers and a little of pine – so a lot like Charles – and Erik blushes a little at the thought of smelling like Charles when he gets out of the bath. It cannot be helped, however; his own soap is on the bottom of his backpack and he’d have to clamber out of the tub to get it, splashing water everywhere. He washes himself quickly and dunks under the water, rubbing his scalp to get the lather out. 

When he finally climbs out of the bath, he does so with great reluctance, but the fire underneath is dying and the water won’t stay warm forever. He wraps the enormous towel around himself and scrubs until his skin is pink. He pulls on his spare clothes, which are still a little damp, but delightfully warm, and straps his knife to his hip. Charles is very friendly, but the knife is a warm, smooth metal which had accompanied him for many, many years now, and Erik would feel naked if he left it behind. He spends some time on thoroughly washing his clothes with soap and warm water, until they too smell like pine and flowers. He wrings them out and rolls them into a bundle, hoping for a line on which he could hand them out to dry. Emptying the bathtub proves to be easy enough: there is a cork inside, with a line attached, so Erik needs only to tug and the water rushes out, underneath the floorboards, and presumably back into the stream. There is a bucket for the soot in the corner, but Erik figures that can wait until it’s cool.

He hefts his backpack onto his shoulder and opens the door. Immediately the blue creature flies up into his face, this close to alighting on his nose. Erik jumps back and it hovers before him, nearly stationary. It must be some sort of a dragon, Erik thinks, even if the wings look like they belong to a dragonfly, because its skin is covered with tiny scales and there are claws on every one of its four legs. “What do you want?” he asks, fighting the urge to swat at it. It merely comes closer, blowing a ring of smoke into his eyes. Erik thinks this might be some sort of a question, although how he knows he isn’t sure. “What?”

The dragon puffs up and folds its arms across its chest and then somehow curls into a little ball, with the wings still fluttering, and rocks from side to side. Then it throws its snout back, indicating direction. 

Erik stares at it, confused. “What do you want?”

The dragon huffs, puffs and flutters away, leaving Erik to follow. It flies straight to an open window, but Erik takes the longer route, around the house and through the main door, as a proper troll should. He climbs the few steps from ground level and through the porch he walks into a sprawling drawing room. The house is fairly narrow, he notes, and round; most of the ground floor is this room, with only two windows – they are large windows, but for the space of the room they are not enough – with a crystal chandelier in the middle of the ceiling and a large fireplace against a wall. Architecture is not Erik’s strong suit; his kind tends—tended to live in tents or huts, when the need for being stationary is particularly strong, which is not often. He takes his time wandering around the living room, nonetheless, admiring the structure. There veranda by the front door is facing south, so he hangs out his clothes to dry there. He leaves his boots alongside them, as well – the floor is very clean and he can easily walk around barefoot. Wood does not speak to him as metal or stone, but it is smooth, no doubt polished by hundreds of troll feet, which trod on it for many years. Erik stops in front of the window, where the floor is the warmest, and tries to listen for the stones underneath the floor. 

Their voices are faint, separated as they are by oak, but he hears the welcome all the same.

On the other side of the wall there is the sound of pots clanging and fire crackling, so Erik looks for a doorway and steps into a kitchen. It’s a funny kitchen, more of a circular corridor flanking the drawing room, which is strange, though perhaps Erik shouldn’t comment, when his idea of a food-making space is a pot on a fire under the sky. There is something to be said about actual kitchens, he thinks, when he takes in the garlands of various foodstuffs hanging from the ceiling. There is garlic and a variety of herbs, several strings of dried mushrooms, and what looks like dark violet beads, but turns out to be juniper berries. There are shelves made of oak wood, on which there are shining brass pots, aligned according to their size. There is even one cabinet with glass in the door, behind which there are tiny teacups and a matching teapot. In the middle of it all there’s Charles, fussing over a sizzling pan, sprinkling salt onto the frying fish. His forehead is furrowed in concentration as he wiggles the pan by the handle, until the two fat fish on it jerk.

There is another pan filled with mushrooms and onion, stewing in something creamy and white, and two pots, one of which contains some sort of thick soup, the other potatoes. Then, next to the stove, there is an oven. Erik can smell roasting apples.

Charles looks up from the food and beams. “I didn’t think to ask – do you like fish? The book doesn’t say, but there is so much I don’t know about trolls. My parents didn’t really cook fish, not often, anyway, but I love them. I caught these just today.”

“It smells very good,” Erik allows cautiously, still staring at the dishes, which are filled to the brim, and Charles who nervously taps their edges with a wooden spatula. 

“I can make other things, if you’d like? I have tomatoes and carrots and lettuce and cabbage—“ He is wringing his paws nervously and Erik feels that every twitch of his face is intently examined for signs of discomfort or disgust. 

“It smells wonderful,” he says, and by the stone and earth, he means every word. He is starving; he has to swallow nervously just so he doesn’t accidentally flood the house, and all he wants is to sit down and stuff the food into his mouth, all at once. “I’m very hungry.”

Charles drops the spatula and flutters at him, it’s quite remarkable. He pushes Erik out of the kitchen and to the table, where two settings are laid out on opposing sides, and on the right there is a small bowl on a saucer. Raven the dragon is already sitting there, giving Erik a suspicious stare, while Charles disappears into the kitchen. Luckily for the state of Erik’s unbitten face, he returns moments later, laden with a huge porcelain bowl – wait, says a voice in the back of Erik’s mind, there is a word for that: it’s a tureen – which is filled to the brim with soup. He sets it on the table and ladles Erik a generous amount, before pouring a few thick drops into Raven’s bowl and then his own. 

Erik has a palate used to dried meat, stale bread and fresh apples, gobbled down while walking uphill in pouring rain, a thin approximation of soup made of the small mountain stream fish and whatever herbs he manages to find, if he’s lucky, so the first thing that registers is that the soup is hot and spicy, that there are chunks of potato, bright yellow against the overall green. It pours into his stomach and his stomach is yelling for more, cuddling around the mouthfuls and crooning in delight. Erik polishes the plate clean before he can think about it.

“It is delicious,” he tells Charles, whose ears flicker in delight, as though he knows delicious is far too small a word, that Erik pours rainbows and sunshine and all things warm and beautiful into his appreciation of this soup.

“There’s plenty, you should help yourself, while I check on the fish.”

Erik moves to grab the ladle, but a long-forgotten voice, the voice of his mama, stops him in his tracks. “Do not fill your tummy with soup when you are a guest, my little troll,” she always said, “it is impolite not to eat the whole meal.” The voice is soft and beloved, but it is also old and faint, so the fight it puts up in defence of the troll etiquette against the lure of delicious, hot soup with potatoes is feeble.

In the end it helps that Raven is still glaring at him. He will not make a fool of himself, like a toddler troll, in front of a tiny, judgemental creature like this. He sits with his hands folded, glaring right back, until he gets the bright idea that Charles might want to serve all the food he made, and he only has two hands—paws—so he could use help. Erik leaps from his chair and makes his way to the kitchen, where Charles is indeed dishing out the potatoes and sprinkling them with parsley and smearing a spoonful of butter on top. 

“Oh! Erik! You surprised me. Is something wrong?”

“I wondered if you need help. That is a lot of food,” Erik says with some trepidation, because in addition to the fish, the mushrooms and the potatoes there is also a bowl of finely chopped red cabbage with even redder berries. 

Charles’s face is covered with short fur, so it should be impossible to see him flush, but Erik thinks he can see a faint pink tinge underneath the tawny hair. “I’m sorry,” he says and his ears twitch downwards as he speaks. “You are the first guest I ever had and I wanted to make something good for you, so I made all this, because I want you to try and tell me what you like best, so I can make it for you later.”

Erik doesn’t know what to say – mama’s lessons didn’t include the occasion of the host being awkward and unsure of how a proper troll host should behave (maybe she planned to teach him later, when he was older, but then she died and Erik has to guess when it matters). “It looks wonderful,” he says in the end and picks up the warm dishes to carry them to the dining table. It’s about time, too, because Raven is hovering in the doorway, hissing at them both.

“We better go. Raven is cranky when she doesn’t get her food in a timely fashion.”

Raven yips.

Charles laughs and she lands on his head, a glimmering streak of shiny blue scales. She buries her talons in his thick hair and cranes her neck, while folding her tail around her forelegs. She looks like one of the ornaments Moira makes out of silver; gossamer, strong and fierce.

“She is very beautiful,” Erik says.

Raven turns her head and the look she throws his way is sharp for a lack of a better word. She doesn’t hiss or spit up a cloud of smoke, so Erik just nods at her and concentrates on carrying the dishes full of food, which smells so amazing he is getting full just by inhaling the steam. By the time they reach the table Erik is reduced to breathing through his mouth, so that he doesn’t start wolfing the food down where he stands.

He manages to control himself long enough for Charles to heap the meal onto his plate and throughout – he hopes – so that while he eats quickly, leaving himself no time to converse, he oozes appreciation and delight. He hasn’t had a meal like this in years and years and years…

Charles is glowing with happiness on the other side of the table. Erik notes only vaguely and in-between bites, that he eats, at most, half of what Erik is consuming. Instead his gaze is riveted to the rapidly diminishing pile of food on Erik’s plate and how quickly it disappears. 

Erik slows down eventually, forcing the last mouthfuls down. His stomach is so full it threatens to burst and he wants nothing more than to find his tent erected already, so that he can crawl under his blanket and sleep. 

“Are you okay?” Charles asks, evidently alarmed by the way Erik’s fork is drawing circles in the mushroom sauce. 

“I’m full.” Erik lets the fork go and looks up. “I’m so sorry, it was very delicious, but I can’t eat another bite.”

Something extremely complicated happens, which involves both of Charles’ ears, his tail and his jewel-like eyes. Erik blinks at him drowsily, fighting the urge to sleep and the horror at committing a horrible discourtesy to his host. “It was amazing,” he says quickly, relieved beyond belief when Charles perks up. 

Despite the fullness of his stomach Erik helps with the dishes, rubbing each one until the fat slops into the bucket and the shiny porcelain beams up at him. Charles dries and puts them away, not uttering a word, just smiling brightly, or so Erik assumes, because unless his mouth is open it is hardly visible through his fur.

They sit on the veranda after that, watching the clouds chase each other on the sky, barely saying a word. Charles leaps up at some point and runs into the house, returning with a silver tray on which there is a teapot clad in a ridiculous dress with a flower embroidered in the middle, a couple of cups and a couple of plates, each with a round, glazed apple. They eat the apples (Charles keeps feeding Raven pieces of his) and drink their tea, watching the day lazily wave at them as it passes. Erik is sure he dozed off for a moment, warm, clean and content as he hasn’t been in many long years, and when he wakes up he can smell the afternoon bloom and wilt. Soon the sky would turn gold and orange and the night would come, and he was still uncertain as to a good place to bunk down for the night. “Can I set up my tent in your meadow?” he asks, slowly getting to his feet. “It’s getting late and I don’t think I can move far enough.”

Charles is visibly startled by his query, enough to drop his teacup onto the saucer. “But you don’t have to – I have plenty of spare bedrooms. Of course I want you to stay the night.”

Erik shudders at the thought of spending the night in the house, appalled at the ease with which it was suggested. This place is the dwelling of another troll, a strange, furry troll, but a troll nonetheless. This is a place of home, of family and warmth, not of strangers. “Don’t you know anything?” he asks, a little angry. He has dreamed of meeting others ever since he began his journeys, but in his imaginings the other trolls were like him, and the closest they got was when their tents were set up side by side. He has long made peace with that: having another troll share his fire, his fishing lines and, in case of extreme cold, his tent, would have been more than enough, more than he dared to dream. Homes though, homes were for families only. Once an adult troll left his parents’ house they wandered alone, until they found another troll and made them family, then together they made a home, if they chose. Erik has no more kin to make his family, so he will never have a home. It hurts to think of, but he accepts it as truth. The bottom line is, that unless a troll is ill, he should never stay inside a foreign home past sunset. “I can’t stay here. It’s not proper!”

Charles blinks. “But we are both trolls. I welcome you here, I want you to stay. Why is it not proper?”

“Houses are for families,” Erik says firmly. “I won’t be going far,” he adds, because Charles is crestfallen by his decisiveness: he sits on the wooden chair, twisting his paws until Erik is sure there must be a knot on his fingers, they are so tangled. “I like this meadow, if you don’t mind me staying here.”

Charles shakes his head and follows him out, still dejected. “It could get cold in the night. Do you have a warm quilt? The valley is quite cool even in the summer and the Frost wanders by now and then. I don’t want you to be cold.”

What Erik has is his old blanket, which is threadbare in places and has seen better days. Luckily his clothes have dried so he has things he can put on, in case he does get cold, which is unlikely, as it is summer. He doesn’t say this, though, even as he selects a spot of flat earth on which he dumps his backpack and unrolls the tarp that will keep him dry throughout the night – the sky looks like it might allow for a little rain early in the morning. “I need to find a couple of sticks, about this high,” Erik says, indicating just above his waist. Charles tilts his head but helps him look and in no time at all Erik is hammering two wedges into the earth and tying the rope around them. How many times has he set up his tent before? He could do this with his eyes closed, on top of a mountain and on the sand by the sea. He has slept in the snow and in the rain; he has even made a place for himself above a snarling river, hanging warm and safe in a hammock made of the tarp. 

There really was no need for Charles to pick at the wisp of his tail in dejected misery. “But the beds are soft,” he tries. “I keep them clean and I change the straw every year. I washed all the sheets last month, and I air them often, too. They are much more comfortable than the ground, I promise!”

“I’ll be fine.” Erik crawls into the tent and spreads the leftover tarp over the green grass. There. It’s nice and springy and it may not be a bed, but it is good enough to rest on.

“Can I bring you a quilt, maybe?” Charles is kneeling by the tent’s entrance, with his paws on his knees. He eyes the blanket Erik folds out with trepidation, which Erik could maybe understand – everything in the house is rich and, even if old; the tears are carefully mended, so that even the most worn fabrics seem sturdy and strong, but he would find the trepidation insulting, if, well, it wasn’t well-deserved. His old blanket has survived horrible nights, and soon it will be time to part with it. In truth that time might have come and passed, and Erik only clung to it because it still had his mama’s stitching in the corner, where she mended a tear. 

“I—I would borrow a blanket, if you would be so kind,” he grinds out, despite himself, because Charles doesn’t know this is his mama’s stitching.

Charles doesn’t quite beam, but he runs for the house, as though he fears Erik will change his mind if he lingers, and returns bearing a quilt made of many layers of some soft fabric. It feels lovely against Erik’s cheek – it will be almost like he was sleeping on a cloud.

The sun slowly dips towards the horizon and Erik leaves Charles sitting on the porch, where he can have a good view of his tent. His tail is swinging between the stakes of the railing, sometimes curling around them, sometimes swinging freely. Erik watches it from where he lies, wrapped up in the soft blanket. The stars come out and Charles hasn’t moved from the porch. The moon smiles down upon the troll valley and Charles sits where he was before, tail swinging. Erik curls himself into a little ball and keeps watching. When the moon is high over the house Charles disappears. Instead of staying gone, however, he returns a moment later with a blanket, which he wraps around himself and curls up on the steps. 

That’s fine – he doesn’t look like he likes the cold, he will go inside soon, Erik thinks, and sleeps.

He wakes with the sun, which is not unusual. The grass is wet with dew under his feet and he stretches in the first morning rays, before looking up at the house, which is tall, but small at the same time, small enough to never be mistaken for a human dwelling. He smiles at nothing in particular, because he remembers that he is not alone, that there are other trolls, even if the one that there is is very strange.

A very strange troll, who is sleeping on the veranda stairs.

Erik curses. “Hey, wake up,” he says, shaking Charles by the shoulder. “Wake up!”

The blanket loosens and Raven comes flying out, puffing out a ring of smoke. Charles stirs, thankfully, and yawns, giving Erik a good view of his small, white teeth. 

“Are you crazy?” Erik asks. “You said you have beds! Why would you sleep here?”

Charles looks at his paws, which are fisted into the blanket covering him from head to toe. Even Raven seems to be hanging onto his answer, and if the shimmering of her scales is any indication of mood, she is frustrated. “I worried you will disappear if I don’t watch. I wanted someone to come for so long… I mean, I have Raven and Mags and Cer, but they are not trolls, and Logan is nocturnal so I hardly ever see him. Never in the summer, actually.”

Erik kneels down on the wet grass. “I wouldn’t leave without saying goodbye,” he admits, though it feels painful in his throat. It gets Charles to smile, so it’s a worthy effort.

“I know – you are so well-mannered. I know you wouldn’t. It’s just that I waited for so long, I worried I might have dreamt you.”

Erik thinks it would have been a pretty sad dream, if that was the case, but he is real enough. “Who are Mags and Cer?” he asks instead, because he’s seen no creature but Charles and Raven.

Charles looks up, a little brighter than before. “Come, I’ll introduce you! It’s almost time, anyway.” He scrambles to his feet, dragging the wet blanket behind him. He dumps it carelessly on the table and runs through the kitchen to a door that leads outside again. Erik follows and steps out, only to immediately duck into a small shed, which smells strongly of curdled milk and cheese. When his eyes give up on trying to capture the glory of the sun and settle for semi-darkness, he finds that the reason for the smell is, in fact, cheese. Several large slabs of cheese lie on high shelves by the wall, and in the middle there is a lopsided wooden table that holds a pail and some wooden tools. Charles grabs the pail and they are out the door again, heading for the adjacent shed, which is warm and full of goat-smell. Erik knows goat smell very well – he has spent many nights in human goat sheds. He likes goats; they are clever creatures and, like most animals, they favour trolls over humans.

There are two goats in this shed: Erik sees two sets of glowing eyes fixed on them both, hovering over a pile of straw. 

“Good morning,” Charles says brightly, setting the pail down and rubbing the goats’ heads. “Did you sleep well?”

The smaller goat is a rusty brown, so rich it seems red. There are darker markings on its face, shadowing its glowing eyes, almost like it is wearing a mask. The bigger goat is white, which, in the poorly lit shed, looks almost blue, and consequently the goat’s body is the only thing which can be clearly discerned from the surroundings. The two look about as different as night and day, so Erik is a little surprised when both bleat and nuzzle up to Charles. 

“I’m so sorry, I didn’t have time to get treats for you, but we have a guest!” Charles says it like it’s the most important thing to ever grace his life since his birth.

Both goats turn their heads, still nuzzling at Charles’ shoulder, to stare at Erik. They don’t blink. They don’t look away. For a few long heartbeats they stare, chewing their cud and not twitching an eyelid, transparent in their intention of judging him to within an inch of his life.

Then they bleat in unison again and return to nuzzling Charles, who is very happy to nuzzle right back, and ignoring Erik, who is more or less fine with that state of affairs, too. “Come on, Mags,” Charles says in the end, wrapping a paw around the red goat’s neck and pulling.

The goat slips out of his hold, pulls back and charges at Erik, with the obvious intention to headbutt. Erik narrowly avoids being stuck on the business end of the short horns, even though he can tell the attack is only half serious.

“ _Mags!_ ” Charles says with a cool command in his voice. “You will never headbutt guests.” The goat looks chastised, but far from sorry. In fact, Erik is certain that where this goat is concerned, sorry is in another valley, three mountains away. “On the stand.”

It is with great reluctance and even greater disdain that the goat hops onto the stand and allows Charles to put the pail under it. Erik, meanwhile, ambles up to the other goat and pets the soft hair, which is flat against its hard skull. Out of the corner of his eye he can see the other goat giving Charles a hard time, mostly by try to leap off the milking stand. Charles has it well in hand, by the looks of it – the pail is constantly shifting and by the time it’s half-full the goat is confused enough to let him finish. 

Erik, meanwhile, pats Cer on the head and picks up the second pail. He tugs her out of the heap of hay to where the floor is even, and is a little miffed when she resists. The warning bleat of the other goat is warning enough to hold his hands up and step away.

“You have to pick Cer up and move her,” Charles tells him quietly. “She can’t walk very well. When I found her both her hind legs were crushed by a rock. Go on, I’ll keep Mags still.”

Erik picks the goat up and hoists her over the mound of hay. He knows how to milk a goat; his mama kept a goat for her milk and though it has been forever, he manages to fill the pail to the brim. He finishes shortly after Charles, despite having started a lot later, because Cer is a very polite goat. She bleats once and butts her head against Erik’s shoulder, but she is careful to catch his arm between her horns and the touch itself is less of a hit and more of a friendly bump, the kind that says “hi friend, enjoy the milk, I ate extra honeysuckle to make it sweet.” Erik pats her on the head and gets a friendly lick for his trouble, even if he is immediately pushed out of the way by Mags, who crowds Cer into a corner and stands guard, glaring at him.

Charles doesn’t say a word, but he is brimming with quiet joy when they haul the milk to the cheese shed and pour it into separate tubs, the smallest of which Charles picks up and carries back into the house.

They have oatmeal with honey and dried apples for breakfast, after which Erik finds himself dragged by the hand to the cheese shed, where Charles proceeds to pour milk into a bowl of curdles and somehow turns it into cheese. Erik is fuzzy on the details, because he has yet to observe cheese taking shape, but it must, at some point, as there are the slabs on the shelves, which are obviously cheese. They smell like cheese, anyway, and Erik is grateful, because he very much enjoys cheese.

The rest of the day is much the same. Erik retains very little memories of his parents and their home, but he doesn’t remember the constant housework. Charles is on his feet the whole time, it seems: after breakfast and cheese making there is the feeding of chickens, and collecting the eggs laid throughout the night (Charles has five hens in the small shed adjoined to the goat-house: three ruddy-brown and two white). After the hens there is the scrubbing, the weeding, the watering, followed by the cleaning. Every day is like that, Charles running around and preventing Erik from doing much more than lifting a couple of plates off the table. Throughout the first week Erik slowly warms up to the idea that Charles is trying to impress him with the well-kept house and plentiful food, because the moment he swallows too loudly, or stone-forbid, his stomach growls, Charles disappears and returns with tea and small sandwiches, or pastries, or cakes, while he returns to his chores and watching Erik eat out of the corner of his eye. Raven usually perches next to Erik and steals bites from his plate, when she isn’t helping Charles out in what little ways she can. Eventually Erik manages to insert himself into the well-practice routine, when he notices a few of the furniture are old and eaten through by insects. There are only the simplest tools in the old shed, so anything fancy is out of question (not that Erik can do anything fancy), but the grin on Charles’ face when Erik presents him a couple of stools to replace the one which fell apart earlier that week suggests he has never seen anything so amazing.

In the evenings Charles excuses himself so he can stuff more cushions into Erik’s tent. The first night it happens, Erik protests and takes the cushion back. The third night he allows one to stay. On the seventh he has enough soft pillows to winter in the tent. Charles, mercifully, is persuaded to return home for sleeping five days after Erik’s arrival, even if he still shows up outside early enough to greet the sunrise.

Erik understands that, a little. He wakes up with his heart in his throat every morning, and it isn’t until he sees the other troll that he can breathe properly. It’s true, what his mama told him: everything is a little different when a troll is no longer alone. The grass smells better, the food is tastier and the cold is not quite so cold. Erik throws the quilt back and greets Charles, after which they go milk the goats and have breakfast, and begin their daily chores. They often read if there is still time and light, or hem fraying table cloths. Charles has a spinning wheel and a weaving machine in the attic, for whiling away the long winter nights, Erik assumes. Everything the little troll needs to get by is right there in the house, or so it seems, until one cool evening at the end of summer, when the metal grill on the stove breaks off, nearly scorching Charles’ tail to the bone.

“I know a smithy,” Erik says. “I can go and have it fixed.” He is nearly excited at the prospect of a journey, because however much his heart has settled and won’t rest until he sees Charles first thing in the morning, his feet ache to be travelling again.

“Don’t worry,” Charles tells him, as he carefully snipes off the singed hairs with scissors. “The nights are nearly short enough. Let’s go fishing today!”

Erik frowns, but lets it go. The grill feels like something well cared-for, so Charles must know a good smithy that’s not Moira’s, but if that’s the case why wouldn’t they leave now?

He forgets about the grill when they get to the pond, which is really less a pond and more of the river taking all the space it can reach on its way downstream. There is a small, wobbly pier built on the shore, extending just enough over the water to allow for a fishing rod to reach the middle of the stream, if cast correctly. Erik has completely forgotten about finding a rod beforehand, but he has his hooks and his lines, and Charles is carrying a bucket that he fills with fresh water. He then squats on the edge of the pier and peers into the clear water, as though he expects the fish to come to him, and willing jump into the soup.

Erik leaves him to it, and goes into the bushes, because, for one thing, he drunk one too many cups of tea that morning, for another, he needs that fishing rod. He finds one and is on the way back when he hears the splash. 

His heart is hammering like crazy when he reaches the pier and it’s a last-ditch effort of his common sense that stops him from leaping into the water. He needs to see Charles first, before he jumps, he can’t let the current carry him away, and he needs Charles back, he can’t let Charles drown!

“Yay!” 

Erik nearly loses his heart by accidentally spitting it out when Charles surfaces next to the ladder and slowly scrambles up, holding a thrashing fish by the tail. He dumps it into the bucket and squats on the edge of the pier again, and Erik understands: the foolish troll doesn’t know how to fish. Well, no, obviously he knows how to fish, seeing that he just caught a fish, but he jumped into the water all by his lonesome: all trolls should know that swimming in a river is not safe when there is a current to contend with.

“What are you doing, you crazy troll!” Erik yells, dropping the rod where he stands. “This is a river, you can’t just jump in it, it’s not safe!”

Charles looks at him, confused. “But I need to catch fish. I thought you liked fish.”

“I love fish, that’s not that point! The current is quite strong. You can’t just jump, not unless someone is watching you.”

“But you are right here.”

“You didn’t warn me.”

“I’m sorry,” Charles says, fidgeting. Erik is still livid, but it is extremely hard to be livid at a thoroughly wet troll who is pawing lightly at his sweater, so he has to let it go. “What’s the stick for?”

“It’s for fishing,” he says flatly, and sits down. Charles takes his cue and sits beside him, staring at his hands as Erik ties the line on the rod and spears a dried currant on the hook. “And now we wait,” he explains as he casts the bait. “No one has to get wet and more importantly no troll has to risk drowning.”

Charles nods and stares at the surface of the water, at the bobbing float with undue fascination. 

“You should go home and change,” Erik says without thinking.

“Change? Into what? How?” Charles stares at his paws. “Do you change? Is that how you lost your tail?”

“I never had a tail. I meant you should dry yourself. You’re all wet.”

“Oh, that’s okay, my fur dries quickly and I’m quite warm right here.” Charles smiles as he looks at the sky, so that the sun shines into his face. Erik looks away, focussing on the shimmering surface of the water instead, where the float he carved out of a pine branch is bobbing up and down. He is not surprised that he feels the tug of the line before Charles is dry. If the fish are so fat and slow that a troll can catch them by diving off a pier, then they must exist only to feed said troll, he reasons as he pulls out the hook with a handsome trout wiggling on its end.

“That is a lot easier,” Charles says when they make their way home with a bucket in which there are three clean fish, ready for frying. “Will you teach me?”

*****

It is only a few days later, a while after sunset, that Charles arrives at the living room with an inexpertly woven basket filled with cheese, which is wrapped with in a white napkin. “I want to introduce you to Logan,” he says. Under the other arm he holds the broken grill.

Raven raises her head and lets out a shrill cry, then takes off and makes herself comfortable on the mantle above the fireplace. She hisses at Charles when he tries to come closer, and eventually he gives up with a soft sigh. “Raven doesn’t like Logan much,” he explains. “She thinks he’s scary.”

Understandably, Erik is a little curious and a lot apprehensive when they make their way through the twilight, heading across the valley, towards the mountains. Charles hasn’t said much about this Logan creature, only that he was nocturnal, so Erik is understandably wary when they reach a low cave, in the depths of which something rumbles. Charles lights a small candle and walks in without hesitation, and Erik isn’t given much choice but to follow, even though the rocks tremble and hiss. The path inside is wide and smooth, and the rocks don’t speak of danger, but Erik keeps one hand on his knife anyway. Finally they reach a cave, in which there is a large fireplace, more like an oven, really, and a wide shelf on which someone has heaped fresh hay.

“Good evening, Logan,” Charles says to the pile of rocks in the corner. “This is Erik, he found me this summer.”

To Erik’s horror the pile unfolds and stands, towering over them both. He grabs Charles by the scruff of his neck and pulls, ready to run and possibly fight, because they have wandered into the cave of a mountain troll, and everyone knows those are vicious brutes, except Charles won’t be budged.

“My grill broke,” he says quietly, proffering the iron. “I know it’s early, but could I ask for your help?”

The mountain troll grunts and bends at the knees to bring its huge face to Charles’ and sniff at the cast iron in his hands, while Erik holds onto his mind with both hands. Charles is talking to a mountain troll!

“Oh, and this is for you.” Charles takes the cheese out of the basket and puts it on a flat rock. The troll looks at it for a moment and snorts, then sticks his hands in the fire, to rustle up the embers.

Charles beams and pulls Erik to the hay-filled ledge, where they both sit and watch as the enormous troll begins working on the iron using only his fists. It takes a long time, but Erik can’t tear his eyes away. Slowly he begins to recognise the soft song of iron that takes shape, and matches it to the iron in Charles’ house. This is the troll who made at least parts of the stove, the pokers and the grills, he realises. Charles took his work and made them home, more importantly the iron is at home there, so the mountain troll can be trusted after all, if his work can be woven into a home.

The conclusion doesn’t stop him from freezing when Logan turns and proceeds to nibble at the cheese. The image of a mountain troll nibbling at goat cheese is uproariously funny, and Erik’s can’t help the outburst of, “I thought mountain trolls ate rocks.”

Logan pauses and looks at him. “Cheese is a kind of rock.”

“No, it’s not. Cheese comes from goats.”

“The moon is made of cheese,” Logan says. Erik nods, uncertainly. He knows this: the moon is a ball of cheese, made from milk that spilled from the Milky Way. “But the moon is also a rock. Therefore cheese is a type of rock.”

Erik isn’t sure about the logic, but, on the other hand, if a mountain troll eats the cheese, then it must have something in common with rocks after all. He sits there for a minute longer and then remembers Charles, who has been silent for a while now. The reason for this, he discovers, is that Charles has fallen asleep on the hay, with his paws and tail tucked underneath his body.

“Stupid troll,” Logan says, but he stops hammering at the grill and begins pressing it into shape instead. “There’s a water spring a little further in, if you want a drink.”

Erik declines politely. He’d rather not leave Charles alone, even if Logan seems transfixed by the embers and the iron. He sits there long into the night, until Logan is done and trudges outside without looking at them twice, or so Erik thinks, until a heavy, coarse blanket is dropped onto their heads. “He’ll sleep until morning,” Logan says, indicating the ball of fur with hay sticking to it in odd places. “It’s much too early for him to start visiting.”

He leaves after that, but Erik can’t quite fall asleep, not when he knows he’s in a mountain troll’s cave. He opts for staying up until Logan returns and lies down to sleep, which only happens shortly before sunrise. 

Charles wakes shortly after. He yawns and stretches, and goes to the water to wash his face, a clear enough indication he knows his way around the cave. “Logan is extremely kind,” he says when he collects the grill and bolts that will hold it in place. “He built a tiny stove for me one autumn, and he never says a word when I bring him cheese. I know he eats rocks, but he never says a word and always eats the cheese.”

Erik nods and yawns. It is not impossible that the mountain trolls simply enjoy an undeserved reputation, however he is not fully convinced this isn’t the fault of the fuzzy, harmless creature, that walks at his side and talks about the rocks and night-sky and how happy he is to have Erik here. Erik would sooner believe that Charles can adopt a mountain troll into his family, before he believes they are not tempestuous brutes, despite the evidence to the contrary.


	2. Chapter 2

A few days later Charles declares this is the perfect time for picking herbs, so they take baskets and stroll through the fields, picking the leaves and seeds for drying. The work is easy and the sun warm on his back, so Erik hardly considers this work, at least until he finds himself shivering for no reason. It is strange, this bite of cold, because though the sun has disappeared from the sky the air is warm, and there is an unmistakeable white sheen glazing the emerald green grass. Erik looks around, hoping that he’s wrong, but then the hair on the back of his neck stands up and trembles. He looks to Charles and sure enough, he looks to be twice his usual volume.

They shuffle closer together, so that their misted breaths mingle, and stare into the distance, at the fog, in which there is a white shape. Erik feels something slithering around his ankle and jumps in alarm, but as soon as Charles yelps he understands that, for now, he is perfectly safe – the silly troll has his fluffy tail wrapped firmly around Erik’s ankle. “We should go back,” he says quietly and sees Charles nod. 

The white shape is getting larger as they withdraw, hand in hand, or rather tail in ankle. It seems to be moving towards them and finally they run for cover, skidding to a stop behind a nearby tree, where Charles’ tail once more slithers around Erik’s ankle. The shrub is high enough to cover them to the ears, and from the relative safety they see the Frost approach, leaving a white, glittering trail behind her. Even now, in the heat of summer, the snow flowers bloom where she walks. They die soon after, but not before they stretch across the living grass. She walks in a straight path, by their tree, not moving her head, and Erik holds his breath as she passes, white and perfect and deadly as the winter itself. She is beautiful, but the cold that pours out of her is enough to freeze the blood in his veins, ignite the terror in his mind. He doesn’t fear winter, even if he usually travels south when it comes, but the Frost frightens him.

He is so enthralled that he scarcely hears Charles gasp and leap out of their safe cover, to put himself firmly in the Frost’s path, spreading his ineffectual paws as wide as they would go – which is not wide at all, against the wintery apparition – and look up. He trembles all over as the Frost stops and looks down at him, no doubt shocked that something this small dares to cross her path, let alone try and stop her.

“Wait,” Charles says. “Please. Your necklace—please, I need it.”

Erik scrambles out of the bushes and runs to grab Charles by the hand and pull him away, even as the Frost moves her hand to cover the large moonstone which hangs on her neck with her white palm. 

“Don’t be stupid,” he hisses and resists the urge to bite Charles’ furry ear as he does. How could he have been so stupid as to run towards danger? Idiotic little troll, no wonder he’s the last, if his kind is so foolish! “Run!” He pushes, but Charles digs his hind paws into the ground and stays, staring up at the Frost.

“Please!” he says. “It’s very, very important! It belongs to me.”

“It is mine,” the Frost says. Erik starts. He didn’t know she had a voice at all. She sounds like winter when she talks – the words are slow and icy, glittering in the scarce light and making jingling sounds.

“It is not!” Charles bristles and his paws curl into fists.

“I found it. It belongs to me.” The Frost steps forward, dismissing them, but Charles doesn’t budge.

“I will buy it,” Charles says. “If you found it, if you didn’t take it from a Moomin, I can’t demand it back, but I need it. I will buy it from you.”

“Buy?” The Frost herself, the soul of winter, the spectre of cold and death, alive even in the heat of summer, when all things cold and dark withdraw to underground caves and lakebeds, stops and looks down at the tiny, fuzzy troll in her path. “It is precious.”

“I have many treasures. You can pick whichever you like best.”

It is hard to relax when the winter spirit gazes down upon you, staring without eyes, her face nothing but a glistening mirror of ice with a mouth. Finally, after a lifetime, she nods.

Charles relaxes and turns. He leads the Frost towards his home, without looking back. Erik trots beside him, anxious as anything, casting wary glances at the Frost, in case she begins to advance on them while their backs are turned. It is not his home, he tells himself when Charles ascends the few stairs to the veranda. It is not his, he has no say in who does Charles invite; let him invite the winter, if he’s stupid enough. Erik has no right to question. The house is not his home and Charles is not his family.

He says nothing as Charles opens the doors to the living room and pushes a heavy armchair to the table. He does, however, notice that the Frost pauses close to the fireplace and extends her palms, while the fire spits and tries to get away. Charles, too, sees and so he pushes the armchair closer to her, then he turns to Erik. “Help me move the table,” he says and Erik does.

“Would you like some tea?” Charles looks up at the Frost and she stares at him for a long moment. In the end she nods and Charles immediately makes for the kitchen, to put the kettle on the stove, leaving Erik to stare at the Frost, tense as though he was already frozen, with one hand on his knife. There won’t be much he could do, not against the Frost, but he will fight her, if necessary, even if he thinks Charles is the stupidest troll to ever make a stupid decision. Well, if he wants the Frost in his own house, that’s his problem, Erik is not going to say a word, as it’s not his place to tell a troll whom he can and cannot invite into his own house. 

The water boils, but Charles doesn’t return. Erik hears his footsteps on the stairs and then rummaging in the rooms above. The kettle whistles and Charles returns soon after, laden with stuff. There is a heavy book there, and a box, a wooden toy, and a number of other things. He sets them all on the table and goes for the kitchen, returning promptly with the teakettle and cups. He pulls up a chair and sits down, motioning Erik to do the same, but Erik shakes his head and stays where he was, with one hand on the knife, in case the Frost makes sudden movements. Charles disappears again, returning after a few minutes with even more things, which join the selection already on the table.

“Those are my most precious things,” Charles says, after pouring the tea. “You can have them all, if you wish, in exchange for the necklace.”

The Frost stares down at the array on the table. She touches the book and the box, which contains three colourful feathers and a linen napkin, leaving behind fingerprints of snow flowers, before she picks up her teacup (Erik sees the steam raising from it disappear). “They are worthless,” she says. “The necklace is precious.”

Charles droops in his chair and reaches out to tangle his fingers with Erik’s free hand, which may well be the only thing which stops Erik from leaping across the table. “They are not worthless!” Erik says hotly. “They are important and precious, a lot more precious than your stupid necklace!”

“What would you like, instead?” Charles asks, soothing Erik’s ire by rubbing little circles into his palm. “You’re welcome to see the whole house; you can have anything you want.”

In response the Frost points up and behind them both. Charles turns his head to follow the direction she indicates and looks back at her. “The chandelier? You want that?”

Erik is bristling again. He is no expert, but the chandelier is made of iron and silver, the branches are detailed and no doubt took many hours of crafting, not to mention the flawless crystals that hang from every branch like dewdrops. It can’t be worth as little as the moonstone; Erik has three more sequestered in his favourite caves, which he will bring Charles as soon as the Frost leaves for good, and he won’t call his precious treasures worthless while doing so.

Of course, Charles is an idiot troll and he is out of his chair and clambering up the wall before anyone can say another word. He unties the cord and carefully lowers the chandelier to the ground, where it rests on the carpet and shimmers in the firelight.

“There,” Charles says happily. “I have a small cart which I think I can fit this in, but you will have to be careful. I will wrap it up for you, to make sure it is safe – or maybe you’d like me to deliver it?

The Frost rises from her chair and comes closer. She bends to the chandelier and touches two of the largest crystals, which swing on the woven metal branch. Then, in one quick move, she tears them both off their hooks. Erik is by Charles’ side in an instant, but the Frost makes no move to approach them. Instead she undoes the fastening of the moonstone necklace and holds it out for Charles to take, which he does without hesitation, which in turn is yet another example of how foolish a troll he is. The stone is cold, so cold that Charles hisses when his paws come in contact with it, but heedlessly he presses it against his breast and keeps it there. 

“Are you sure?” he asks, looking up at the Frost. “You can have the whole thing.”

The Frost doesn’t answer. She holds the crystals she took to her ears and stares over both their heads into the mirror on the wall. She seems satisfied, because she turns and leaves, without another word, leaving behind a trail of snow flowers and the bite of cold. Erik rushes to close the door behind her and watches her go from the window, barely daring to blink until she is safely away from sight. 

“What were you thinking?” he explodes then, turning to yell at Charles, at the small, furry idiot troll who invites the winter into his home. 

Sadly, the idiot troll has no intention of submitting to a yelling. He clutches the moonstone to his chest and coos at it, rubbing it all over with his paws, so that the icy framing and chain melts away. Then, all of sudden, he is running across the room, down the stairs and into the basement. Erik follows, nonplussed, into a small room opposite the potato cellar. He thought, up until now, that the small door must have led to another stash of food, but it turns out quickly that this one is not for storage: the walls are lined with bright oak-wood and there is a pot-bellied stove in the corner. The room is so small that the tiny stove dominates the space, even though it is barely taller than Erik’s knees. There is only enough space leftover for a tiny rug, a small pile of firewood, and a mound of neatly folded pillows and blankets, with no visible mattress. 

“Can you get a hot water bottle?” Charles asks, as he begins to tear the neat pile apart. “The kettle is on the stove and the bottle should be in one of the cupboards. It’s the one with a cosy on it.”

Erik understands exactly nothing, but he goes upstairs, boils the kettle and fills the bottle. By the time he gets back Charles has fashioned a nest in the middle of the mattress, visible at long last, and has laid the stone in it. He is stroking it when Erik comes in, muttering to himself. 

“Here you go,” Erik says, handing the bottle over. “Now will you tell me why your tail is all twisty?”

“It’s so cold! She was wearing it on her neck and it’s so cold. It shouldn’t be this cold, not ever.”

“What shouldn’t be this cold?”

Charles fusses for a few moments more, arranging the bottle next to the stone and covering both with a soft pillow. 

“The egg,” he says. “The eggs shouldn’t be cold, or they won’t hatch.”

There is little Erik can say to that but, “What egg?”

“The egg!” Charles waves his arms up and down, jumping a little as he does so. “The Moominegg!”

“What?” Erik says. “What’s a Moominegg?”

“It’s an egg laid by a Moomin, obviously.”

“What’s a Moomin?”

Charles lets the blankets flutter from his paws. “I’m a Moomin. A Moomintroll. And that’s a Moominegg.”

“It’s just a moonstone.”

“It’s not a stone!” Charles says hotly. “It’s a Moomin-egg! In the spring it will hatch and it will be a new little Moomintroll!”

“What do you mean, hatch?” Erik finds many areas of his education lacking, which happens often when a troll is very young when he or she loses his or her mama and papa, but he is certain that lesson he remembers. “Trolls don’t hatch from stones. Trolls are born. Humans tell stupid stories, but no trolls hatch!”

Charles glares at him. It is a confounding sight on something that’s naked and furry all over. “This is not a stone! This is a Moominegg and it will hatch in the spring!” Then the air leaves him and he stares at Erik curiously. “What do you mean, born? Born like goats are born? But goats have the little goats in their belly for months and the little goats kick!” Then something else occurs to him. “Were you born?”

“Of course. Every troll is born.”

Charles tilts his head. “I hatched. I remember hatching. Not very well, but I remember the shell and I remember heartbeat and waking. I still have bits of my shell. What’s it like, being in your mama’s belly? Is it warm? I bet it’s very warm.”

Erik gives the matter some thought. “I don’t know. I don’t remember. It must be very warm.” He remembers hugging his mama and she was always so warm and she smelled lovely, too. Though being inside her might have been a little different, he’s sure she was very warm.

Still, that explains very little about the Moomin thing. Birds hatch, Erik knows that. The mama bird sits on the eggs and when they are ready they break the shell from the inside. Somehow, he has no problem imagining Charles sitting on a nest full of eggs, cooing at the hatchlings, it’s the hatching itself that gives him trouble. “Did you ever lay any eggs?” he asks cautiously, because Charles looks sad, and obviously if he’s laid eggs then the little trolls are gone. It is the right question, somewhat, because Charles laughs at him, in a nice way.

“Don’t be silly! I’m a boy-troll, only girl-trolls lay eggs.”

Oh, Erik thinks, blushing hotly, for no reason at all. How was he supposed to know?

Then he has another thought. “I found a stone just like this one a few weeks back. I traded it to a human.”

There are no words for the way Charles reacts to that. He tries to be in two places at once, one of them a few feet off the floor, he yells and cries and laughs, a little bit, then he lunges at Erik and hits his chest a few times, hard enough to hurt, though he is still holding back, Erik can tell. “How could you!” he cries at last, when Erik has his back pressed against the wall and Charles is standing on tiptoes so that they are nose-to-nose. From the vantage point he sees the blue eyes overflow with tears, as the rest of him trembles. “To a human! The poor egg! I thought you were my friend, how could you give it away. It must be so cold.”

Charles sinks to his knees and cries even though Erik sits by him and pulls him into a tight hug. “I’m very sorry,” he says. “I didn’t know it was an egg. I thought it was just a pretty stone.”

Charles snuffles against his shoulder and burrows his face against Erik’s neck. His hair and his fur is very soft and silky smooth against Erik’s skin, he discovers with some surprise, and it feels nice, having all the warmth and the soft huffing breath against his neck.

Then he realises he is clutching an adult troll to his chest, so he quickly stands and coughs, trying to cover up the breach in propriety. It only somewhat works, as Charles is still on the floor, hiccoughing through the tears, which slide down his fur and pool on the floor, despite the frantic attempts at wiping them off. “What if they break it?” he asks, grabbing his tail and picking at it. “What if they break it into little pieces? What if they leave it out in the cold or ice?” He tears up again and pulls up the pillow to touch the egg, which is cradled to the hot water bottle. “The eggs mustn’t be cold for too long.”

That is a concern, Erik understands. “I don’t think she would,” he says slowly. Moira is human but she understands rocks almost as well as a troll. She wouldn’t destroy a stone so pretty. “She liked it very much. She would keep it safe. We can get it back.”

He doesn’t intend it, but the words end up sounding like a promise, and, given the way Charles perks up and finally dries his face, Erik will be held accountable. 

******

Erik shouldn’t be surprised when Charles takes to running around his house and collecting potentially useful items in preparation for the trip. He is a little stunned, still, so he only steps in when Charles amasses a dangerously tipping pile, which is far more than a sane troll would need to live, let alone carry around. He steps in then, taking the lamp out of Charles’ soft paws and placing it safely on the side, next to Raven, who is eyeing the proceedings with much doubt.

“None of that. We will need a good blanket and some dry food, but most of all we will need clothes for you. Most people think I’m an ugly human child when they see me, and we need to cover you up to have them think the same.”

“You’re not ugly! You’re a little strange, maybe, because you have no fur except on your head, and your ears are very odd, but you are not ugly.” Charles frowns and the skin between his eyes furrows. His paw is once again on Erik’s hands, confirming by touch what he’s saying. He rubs little circles into Erik’s knuckles, no doubt confused by the texture of Erik’s skin, but that’s fine, because Erik is, at the same time, marvelling at the fine hair covering Charles’ paws. “I think you look nice,” he adds with the tiniest hint of apprehension, tapping at the fingernail. “Even if you don’t have a tail.”

Erik doesn’t blush, not even a little bit. “Human are strange,” he says. “They think I look weird, but they are willing to dismiss me; you would be noticed in seconds. We need to dress you up.”

Charles couldn’t look more confused if Erik suggested rolling him up in a jar of honey to attract the mountain bears. “But I don’t have any clothes. I’ve never worn any.” He paused and stared at Erik quizzically, compounding the perusal with reaching out to stroke Erik’s cheek with his paw. “You’re all smooth. I should – would it help if I shaved my fur?”

He looks terrified at the prospect, but no less determined to see it through than he was to pack the mountainous pile of things into a backpack he could carry.

“I don’t think there is a point, your face is strange enough that even the lack of fur wouldn’t help.” Erik went for the cabinet and started sorting through table cloths, looking for something without a floral motif. “We can sew you a coat and I can knit, so there could be a scarf and a hat, too. The nights are getting colder, so it wouldn’t be suspicious when we are in the city all wrapped up.”

“I know what a scarf is!” Charles exclaims brightly, clapping his hands. “You wind it about your neck when it’s cold. It’s made of wool. And wool grows on sheep! I read that sheep are about the size of goats, and look like clouds.”

This isn’t promising. “You don’t have any wool?” Erik asks, rubbing his faithful sweater. He can sew well enough to bluff through a coat, but a hat that doesn’t look half-baked is something else entirely and scarfs are essential, if they want to hide Charles’ face without seeming more suspicious for it. 

Charles is shaking his head. “There are no sheep in the valley. I make fabric from flax.”

Erik droops at the news, but in the end the problem of a scarf is easily solved: he unstitches his old sweater and knits it into a scarf and a pair of acceptable mittens. His own hat is somewhat acceptable, if not fully suited for Charles’ head and protruding ears, but it covers the necessary areas and the scarf does the rest. Charles is sufficiently entertained with the new garments that Erik manages to cut up the fabric and stitch together a coat and a pair of trousers that should do the job without attracting attention, until he is ready to present them. It is no surprise that the effort is met with joy and thankfulness, getting Charles to wear the clothes is something else entirely. 

“What’s this for?” Charles asks curiously, picking the trousers by the leg and shaking. “It doesn’t look comfortable.”

No wonder, when he stuck both his arms into the legs. “You put them on your legs,” Erik says and holds the belt while Charles clambers into the garment one leg at a time. “You need to hide your tail, too.”

Needless to say that causes some drama and not a small amount of trouble: stuffing it down the trousers doesn’t work, neither does hooking it inside the coat, as within moments it’s peeking from beneath the hemline, swinging with every step. “It feels wrong,” Charles complains, but eventually they reach a happy medium, in which the tail is wrapped around one of Charles’ legs, and covered by the trousers. There is another small problem with the tail being hidden, which Erik doesn’t realise until Charles takes a step forward and topples straight into Erik, narrowly avoiding falling to the floor. 

“I just don’t understand,” Charles says when it happens again and again, and his behind is too tender to sit on, unless it’s on a pillow.

“It will take some getting used to,” Erik tells him as he makes the tea. “You’ll be fine.”

At this point another pressing matter makes itself known: Charles has no shoes. Even if they could get some, his feet are nearly round when he spreads his toes and thus anything made to fit a human-shaped foot would be intensely uncomfortable. Erik makes sure that the pants have a wide cuff and instructs Charles to keep his toes together. Then he takes a step back and stares at the completely fantastical creature, swaddled in ill-fitting linen and mismatched wool and he thinks that they will need extraordinary amounts of luck for this venture to succeed. 

“What is it?” Charles asks, tilting his head. No matter how they swaddle him up the charade will be over the minute someone looks at his face, Erik thinks, and looking at his figure will definitely make the humans want to look at his face.

“Maybe you don’t have to go,” Erik says. “I won’t be long, the town is only a few days’ worth of travel away. I’ll be back inside a week.”

“No, no. I can’t possibly let you go alone. Besides, how would you know if it was really an egg?”

Erik considers the matter. “I suppose,” he begins slowly, “I think it would speak to me. I always knew the moonstone was different. It sounded a little different from the moonstones which weren’t so round.” He thinks of the egg hidden in the cosy nest. “It sounded nothing like this one, though. How did you know it was an egg?”

Charles tilts his head. “I don’t know. I look at it and I know, same as I know cheese from limestone.”

There is that. They spend the evening and most of the next morning in preparations. Charles bakes and cooks and packs, so by the time the day is done they have a handsome parcel full of food each, which should see them there and back again. There is even a spare backpack, which Charles says he uses for carrying food around the valley. Raven hovers close to his head as he works, never getting in the way, but always there, nonetheless. She seems excited, if Erik is any judge, which is why Charles’ stern order to remain home is met with much hissing and spitting. They leave her on the porch, where she digs her talons into the wood and lets out a piercing cry.

It is only one of many reasons why Charles is apprehensive when they reach the cave that took Erik through the mountains. The clothing is in his backpack for now, so his emotions are expressed mainly in the swish of his tail, back and forth, in a circle wide enough to brush against Erik’s ankles. 

“I’ve never been outside the valley. My mother made me promise I will wait here, where it’s safe. I was supposed to wait for the trolls to return. I promised.”

“There are no other trolls and the eggs won’t come on their own,” Erik says firmly. “We need to go get them.”

“Yes. Of course.” Charles stares into the mist which hovers at the cave’s mouth. Erik opens his mouth to say something, but that’s the moment Charles starts walking, and continues to walk until the mist swallows him whole. Erik rushes after him immediately, catching up in the gloom and grabbing his paw.

Outside the weather is much the same as it was in the valley. Erik takes a long look at the mouth of the cave and wonders how he managed to find it in the first place. The crevice is narrow and obscured by jagged rocks – it was pure chance he found it in the rain. He hopes they will be able to find it on their way back… No, hoping is pointless. He scratches out a troll sigil, near the ground, and lets it sink into the rock, so that humans won’t take notice, even if they knew the runes.

“Let’s go,” he says and leads down the narrow pathway, hardly different from the unfriendly slopes on either side. He pauses two more times to leave marks, just in case, and by the time the sunlight fades they are standing on the plateau halfway down the mountain, a little out of breath and terrified by the jagged edges which stand between them and the cave and home. “We could stay here tonight. We should reach the town tomorrow night.”

Charles nods and they busy themselves building the tent and a fire. They have bread and goat cheese for supper, which they fry over the fire, and some of the smoked fish. Erik unfolds the heavy quilt and is stupidly grateful he’s chosen to carry it with him, instead of his old blanket. Outside the cosy valley the coming winter is apparent: the air smells cold and he won’t be surprised if the grass is frosted over when the dawn comes.

They build the tent small, attaching the tarp to a rock which is no higher than a standing troll, and then to the ground, with the leftover bit folded and spread on the ground, where there is soft moss. The backpacks make good pillows and when they settle Erik discovers that he needn’t have carried the blanket after all – Charles is warm and soft and curling up next to him makes the tent cosy as anything, cosier probably than the bed Charles promised him in the house. Reducing the tent to a space small enough for huddling in is effective as anything, Erik has long since discovered, but with a living, breathing troll to share it with, there is no fear of not waking up the following morning, no fear of the cold at all. He is warm to the tips of his ears, he has Charles’ tail circling his ankle, and if he ever dared to imagine happiness, this would have been it.

He wakes up with a lightly pulsing bracelet around his ankle, which tickles his foot when he tries to pry it free, and a mouthful of fur. Charles snuffles and snuggles even closer and Erik, despite himself, pulls the quilt around them, because it’s still dark outside and he can have this moment of rest before they have to brave the day. 

*****

Early the next day they reach the human lands. There is nothing specific to which Erik can point, but the earth and the rocks all cry that this is no longer home ground, that humans own it now. He soothes the stones with a whisper and presses on, sticking to shadows and crevices. Caution is paramount: they can’t be spotted. The earth may be foreign, but she does not judge and they will be warned, so Erik does not worry about humans surprising them from up close. Unfortunately, they could be seen from afar, which is why he chooses the route he does and why it is only late in the evening that they reach the town borders. There is a little cavern there that is perfect for storing their backpacks and even hiding the two of them for a short time.

Charles is trembling as he pulls his clothes on, but he is also the first to step out onto the road. They scurry alongside the path, diving for the trench when the squeak of the wheels in the distance as well as a warning susurration of the wind, indicates that a human is close, even in the wet, pricking rain that muffles all else. Fortunately that doesn’t happen until they are near the entrance to the sewers, so soon they are safe underground, where few people venture and those that do know better than to question queerness of others. 

Charles stops in his tracks when they emerge into the lamplight. “There’re so many houses,” he whispers. “So many houses. So many people.”

“Unfortunately,” Erik says, and pushes until Charles is running the scant distance that separates them from Moira’s shop. They slide inside without bothering the bell and take cover under the stairs, watching the brightly lit worktable. “Moira should be here soon,” Erik whispers with his mouth brushing the soft wool of the hat. “She is kind. Don’t fear her.”

He should have known better than to tell Charles to be shy by now. Moira arrives alone, casting surreptitious smiles at the weather outside. She lines out a few tools on her desk and recovers something substantial from a drawer, something that she lifts with both hands, something smooth and pale. She puts it into a contraption before her and picks up a tool that whizzes and spits, and it is all Erik can do to hiss, “Wait!” before Charles is leaping out of the shadows in blind panic. 

“Don’t hurt it!” he yells as he clambers onto the table. “Please don’t! It’s important and precious!”

Erik curses but follows, climbing onto the table as well, shielding Charles from her view as much as he can.

She sighs in relief when she sees him, despite the initial panic. “You brought a friend! I was worried about you, you know.”

“Erik,” Charles says, breathlessly. “Erik. Erik! It is an egg. It’s warm. She’s kept it warm. It’s going to hatch. It’s warm!”

“I need buy,” Erik says firmly. For the first time he feels the chunkiness of human speech as it leaves his mouth. He feels it more keenly because there is a troll with him, singing words of joy. “I bring rocks. Many.”

“You want the moonstone back?” Moira asks. She seems astonished by the prospect, not that Erik blames her. Taking back what has been sold is not what decent trolls should be doing, but this is a Moominegg, and thus not merely an object to be sold, and even if it was, Charles is looking at him with such joy he would offer to buy him the moon herself. “But why?”

“Yes. Very important. Need buy.” He pulls out the leather pouch he carries everywhere and delves into it. The stones shimmer and giggle in his grasp, eager to shine in the lamplight. Moira’s breath catches in her throat as he stares at the rocks. Erik can see her fingers twitch towards them, but she is well-behaved and won’t approach without permission.

Charles works out the working of the contraption and rises from his knees, cradling the egg to his chest. He grabs the mittens he shed and shoves them in his pocket, never once letting go of their prize. He stares up at Moira, and just says “Please.” The word is soft like the song of the stream on a quiet summer night and her mouth parts in wonder.

“You can have it,” she says, crossing her arms over her chest. There is a small smile on her face and Erik thinks she wouldn’t make a completely hideous trollkin if she was a few feet shorter and her nose and eyes were bigger.

“She says it’s ours,” Erik tells Charles, who beams and glows. He pulls the scarf of his neck and very carefully wraps the egg with it, until it is an egg-shaped ball of knitted yarn, with the edges tucked under other edges, so as to produce a perfectly smooth woollen surface. The expression on Charles’ face is indescribable: there are tears in his eyes and a flush underneath his tawny fur. If the excited waving of the coat below the belt is any indication, the tail has joined in, waving in the tight confines of the linen trousers.

The bell over the door chimes a sweet melody, startling all three of them out of their easy smiles and quiet joy. Another human is standing there, one who stares at the three of them in shock. “Master MacTaggart,” he says after a few seconds, “What is the meaning of this?”

Erik pulls his knife out and glares, while pushing Charles off the bench. The door is blocked, but there are other exits. There is the smithy. They can go through the smithy. The door in the far corner of the room is cracked and Moira never locks the smithy – that’s how Erik gets in most of the time. Charles is still clutching the egg with both paws so Erik grabs the edge of his sleeve, hisses at the newcomer and runs for it, while Moira yells words that lose all meaning between her mouth and his ears.

Charles is yipping as they fly through the dark smithy, hit the door and burst out into the street. Erik takes a left immediately, into the shadows of the buildings, and keeps running, despite the heavy drops of rain shattering against his face. He can barely see, but he has been in this town more than a few times, so he knows there is a river nearby and there is an entrance to the sewers there, one without a heavy cover to lift. They will be safe in the sewers, where no sane human being ventures after dark, unless he has a business more pressing than being a troll in a human town, but in such a case he will likely stick to it, instead.

They are almost by the river, when a clutch of humans staggers out of a door, yowling at one another. Erik can barely hear the clatter of his own boots on the cobbles (Charles’ soft paws make little noise) over the sound of his wildly beating heart, but the humans are painfully loud. The cobbles hush up immediately to listen, Erik, in disorientation, stops and Charles yells when he runs into him.

The humans notice them. The one on the forefront raises a hand to point and Erik remembers Charles is not wearing the scarf anymore; his face is in full view and there are lanterns on the street.

Erik dives for the river, with his fingers clutched tightly around Charles’ sleeve. They fall into the murky water and swim hard against the current, to where the river is straddled by a stone arch, at the bottom of which there is a small cavern, connecting the sewers to the river. They try to swim, at least – Charles surfaces and cries out, but it’s too late – the current has torn the heavy egg out of his hands.

The current is strong and the river deep; the egg, further weighed down by the sodden scarf, gets lost in the darkness, beyond recovery. Erik fights it with all his might, but he has to admit, Charles is the superior swimmer, and if it wasn’t for his help, they would have never made it to the bridge before the humans descended the sloping riverbanks. They barely make it to the shore and shadow before they come, and they and listen, too frightened to move, lest the shimmering shadows they cast reveal their presence. The fate has cast them on the shore opposite to the sewer entrance, so that their only escape is a short swim away, but to swim in the river is to surrender to the currents, which would put them in the light.

“They has to be here,” a human voice insists. “I’s telling you—I knows what I saw.”

“You saw plenty of ale, ‘s what I knows, old chap.”

“I knows a troll when I sees one.”

“You avoids mirrors often enough,” this is muttered into a cuff, so as not to offend the instigator. Erik clutches Charles with desperate hands, feeling the latter fight his hold. The egg is heavy, Erik all but hears, it must have sunk, Charles is a confident swimmer, he will dive for it in the freezing water and he will continue until he finds it or drowns. That cannot happen, he swears to himself. The egg is lost. Erik stifles Charles’ desperate cry with his palm.

“Gentlemen,” says one more voice, this one cultured and clear, undiluted by ale. Erik goes stiff, as he recognises the speaker. It is the man who walked in on them in Moira’s workshop. He clutches Charles tighter and holds his breath. The stones and the earth of the river hear his plea and their colour, their shape, blends across them, so that they are quite invisible against the sand and mud; Erik dares not move an inch, for fear of dispelling the illusion. Kind though the earth might be, she is not all-powerful and can’t work miracles, not against a direct gaze. She will confuse the eye and let it slide over them, onto worthier sights, but any amount of scrutiny would be enough to pierce their disguise.

“A precious stone went missing from Master MacTaggart’s jewellery shop. You wouldn’t happen to know anything about it, would you?” the man continues.

“Sir—what would we know about missing jewels, we are but humble—“

“Thieves, McCone, don’t think I don’t recognise you in your fancy new coat. You can be trusted to always be where the excitement is.”

“Please, Commander Shaw, sir, we ain’t done nothing wrong. We was chasing a troll up the road—“

“Really, a troll? I imagine that is quite the quarry, what with the rabbits pulling its chariot. I thought I heard clatter of rabbit feet on the cobbles.”

Erik catches every other word of the sentence, but the teasing tone is light and free. He has looked at them, though, he has seen them in Moira’s shop, and he is a human. If he saw the chase, then he knows they must be here, and if he searches… 

“Come now, if you swear you did nothing, I can let you free for once, though god knows what a novelty that would be,” the man says, and begins ushering the loud bunch off the riverbank.

There is a cacophonic chorus of protest, but the humans are leaving; Erik sees the shadows clamber up the steep bank and disappear, one by one, into the street. At long last there is nothing, but the murmur of the river, but when Erik looks up to confirm they have all gone, he sees the human stare directly into his eyes and wink.

Erik dares not breathe before he disappears, at which point he dives into the water and pulls until Charles and he are at the mouth of the sewers, ducking into the clouds of foul stench. It is struggle, to get the stubborn troll moving upwards, towards the northern edge of the city, where the mountains are closest, when all he does is look back and cry.

They climb out of the sewers beyond the last house, and run for the rocks, where there is safety and concealment. Charles collapses at the mouth of the cave that holds their backpacks and struggles out of the soiled coat and pants. “It was warm,” he says, shuddering in the wind. “Erik, the egg was warm and alive! It would have hatched, I know it would!”

“Come on, we have to go. Worry about the other egg now, this one is lost.”

“I don’t think it will hatch,” Charles says quietly, just as a particularly vicious gust of wind makes his teeth chatter. “The Frost touched it, and I fear it is dead. I mean, I knew it was an egg right away, but there was no warmth to it, like it wasn’t just sleeping. I’ve hoped, but this egg was _warm_ , Erik. It was entirely different, I can feel it in my bones.”

Erik stays silent. He watches Charles pick at his food and half-heartedly wash the grime off his fur in the stream, standing in the deepest of its pools and picking at the muck caught in the wisp of his tail, while Erik, who emerged from the sewers smelling foul, but not overly grimy, washes their clothes and Charles’ coat.

“I have found several other moonstones,” he begins cautiously when their supper is consumed and they huddle for warmth in the narrow space the tent allows them. “They are far, but we could get them. It would only take a month or so. I mean, I can’t promise they are eggs, too, but they were very similar to the one I traded to Moira, so I think they might be. They sounded just the same. We could take the trip; this is not a bad starting point.”

The tent is dark, so he doesn’t see anything, but Charles has a way of looking that bypasses the eyes and goes straight for the heart. “I can’t go.”

“Tomorrow we could go back to Moira and get more supplies, and that would be the last we’ve seen of humans.” It’s only natural to be wary of them, Erik knows that, but in this case they will be taking the long route, the one that takes them away from all settlements. “You left plenty of hay and oats for the animals, so that they will be fine until we return. I’m sure Logan will look in on them.”

“Erik – I can’t. It’s nearly winter.”

“It’s not that bad, honestly.” Erik runs a hand down Charles’ back, feeling the soft fur there, soothing the trembling muscles. “Your fur is warm, you don’t have to fear the cold, and with two in a tent we will be perfectly snug.”

“I’m a Moomin, Erik. I hibernate through the winter months,” Charles says in a small voice. “I read that there was once a Moomin who lived through the whole year, but I always feel so sleepy in late October, and I never managed. I have to hibernate, anyway, for the egg. The eggs hatch in the spring, and I need to keep it warm.”

Erik, for want of something to say, manages, “But you said it won’t hatch.”

“It might,” Charles says stubbornly. “It could hatch. Moomins are strong; if anything could survive the touch of Frost, it would be a Moominegg. I have to try. I must.”

Erik says nothing, because Charles curls up closer and snuffles into his shoulder, and then falls asleep, with his tail curled tightly around Erik’s ankle. Erik doesn’t sleep for a long time. He stares at the tarp of the tent and thinks, hard, about all the beautiful rocks he’d found and hidden, about the moonstones and the caves, about the far-off mountain ranges. How soon could he be back?

The next morning they trudge wearily up the mountain, pausing now and then to nibble at a crumb of fruitcake, and then they move on, straight up towards the misty cave. Charles casts one last, forlorn look at the path they are leaving behind and moves into the mist, not saying a word until they emerge on the other side. The valley is gloomy, just like the outside world, but then again everything seems less happy when Charles is dragging his tail behind him like it is made of lead. They make their way to the meadow, where a blue streak of enthusiasm accosts them, flying into both their faces in turn, bestowing fiery puffs of smoke that feel like kisses on their cheeks. 

“Raven,” Charles says, cuddling her close. “I’m so glad, I worried about you.” He stays on his knees, with his head bowed, until she starts squirming in his grip. He gets up then and lays a paw on the veranda railing. “Come inside, I’ll start dinner.”

Erik clenches his fists. “I’m not staying.”

Charles turns slowly, as though both his ears were glued to a tremendous weight.

“I can’t,” Erik soldiers on, staring stubbornly at Raven. “I have to go.”

“But why?” Charles whimpers. He crosses the few yards that separate them and clings to Erik’s shoulders. “I will cook for you. I have food and shelter and the goats are really nice.”

“If I go now,” Erik says, very carefully, because with every word his mouth brushes Charles’ fur, “I can make it back before winter. I hid three moonstones – eggs, I mean, I’m sure they’re eggs – in caves, I will go and fetch them. If I go now, I can make it back before winter.”

Charles barely reacts. “I was so alone,” he whispers. “I was alone and I waited for so long, I was hoping someone would come and I kept the beds and the rooms and I made food, and I waited and waited and waited.”

“I’ll come back. I promise. By the stones and rock and earth, by the sky and wind and rain, I promise I will come back,” Erik whispers back.

Charles sags in his arms, and the tuft of hair at the tip of his tail brushes Erik’s hand. “Come in for a moment at least and take some provisions,” he says formally. “I couldn’t bear to see you go hungry.”

Erik nods and accepts a few potatoes, a loaf of bread, a hunk of cheese and a handful of seasoning in a clean napkin, which has no finery to it, just a neat row of stitches round the hem. Charles ties a thin blue ribbon around the napkin and places it in Erik’s palm. “Travel safely,” he says, as his paw closes over Erik’s fingers. “May the earth carry you well.”

Raven is perched on Charles head, but at the last moment, just as Erik is about to turn away, she lets out a high-pitched squeal and Charles gently unhooks her claws from his hair. For a long moment he strokes her luminescent scales, and then he softly says, “Go with him,” launching her into the air. “Keep him safe.”

Raven flies back, to bestow another of her fiery kisses on his cheek, before alighting on Erik’s shoulder. “Are you sure? You’ll be alone,” Erik says, holding to the strap of his backpack.

Charles smiles bravely, but the smile is mostly in Erik’s mind, because the fur hides the trembling contours of his mouth. “I have Mags and Cer and Logan, too. Raven always wanted to see the world.”

Erik finds it difficult to turn away, but when he does he doesn’t look back. He makes for the cavern at a pace he knows he won’t be able to hold, but he needs to get away, as soon as possible, if he is to leave at all.

Raven’s claws dig into his sweater all the while. She whines when they cross the mist, then falls silent. She stays quiet throughout the first day, and most of the second, sitting stiff and frightened on Erik’s shoulder, little better than an ornament. Despite that, there is some comfort in her presence, even though her heartbeat is too quiet to be heard, Erik takes comfort in her warm breaths, so close to his cheek, until he starts missing them when she grows bold and begins exploring the landscape they travel through. She crawls under rocks, emerging with fat beetles which she devours in a few large bites, and sets the kindling on fire with her breath, when Erik settles down for the evening. It takes a few days, but eventually she discovers that Erik’s sleeve is a snug bed for a little dragon such as she, and that is how she spends her nights from then on. The company, for its silence and insubstantial weight, is lifting Erik’s spirit nonetheless.

They move quickly, dancing through the prelude to winter. With the provisions Charles has given him he had no need to stop at the human village, so he takes the perilous road that takes them through the mountaintops and dangerous ravines. His hiding places await, calling out with merry voices, and he finds them without difficulty; he is never lost, with the earth singing to him at every step. He finds the moonstones where he left them, in niches concealed with jagged edges, resting, perhaps dreaming of warmth and hatching. He lets himself hope that these are indeed eggs and not just fevered dreams of a desolate troll, driven mad by loneliness. “What do you think?” he asks Raven, as he holds up the stone. “Is this a Moominegg?”

Her shrill cry echoes throughout the cavern, carrying the note of triumph down the mountain.

Erik takes it as confirmation.

He wraps the egg carefully, tucks it into the backpack, near the middle, where it would be safest, and moves on. He visits five caves, in all, though two turn out to contain actual moonstones, which he concludes once he compares them to what looks the most like the egg. The comparison is suspect, as their looks are nearly identical, but there is a substantial difference in their voices: they are far sweeter in the three than in the other two, but Erik has known many stones which sounded just as lovely. The difference is not in the shape or colour, at least not that Erik can see, but there is a weight to the three that should be eggs that simply isn’t present in the stones, nothing physical, just a feeling. They feel a little like the fear of happiness, like the weight in one’s heart when the joy is just too much.

Erik packs his findings away, along with hope, and looks out of the cave into the sky. The weather is getting worse and he has been gone for weeks. There’s no telling whether Charles is still up, so he should hurry back, especially since the next cave may contain just a stone. Decision made, he builds a tent and a fire, to cook the last potato he has. He digs it out of the embers when it’s nice and hot and sprinkles it with the seasoning Charles gave him, wishing for some butter, which thought he immediately scoffs at. He has gone without butter for all of his life, barring an occasional treat; there is no need to become picky now. Nonetheless, he chews with his eyes closed, letting the salt melt on his tongue, and thinks of home, of the secluded valley and a warm kitchen. Raven noses through her crumb and stares at him in mute horror, but he has gotten used to her complaints.

“He feeds you too much,” Erik says, once she swallows the last of her potato, and gives her another crumb. “We are on the road now.” But when he curls up in his tent he thinks of the fried fish and fresh cake, of plentiful milk and a warm troll to cuddle to.

He visualises the food he is returning to in the morning, when he shoulders his backpack and turns back towards the valley. His steps seem lighter as he walks, lighter than they were when he was leaving. By the time he sees the mountains he is practically flying, the weight of the backpack notwithstanding, and even when the eye of the storm swallows the mountain range he is not deterred. Certainly, he hunkers down for the night with Raven safely wrapped around his forearm and the tarp covering the mouth of a cavern he finds, but that is only sense; he stays up and counts the minutes until sunrise. They are close; so close he can see the narrow path that would take him to the passage and into the valley. Sleep won’t come when all he wants in this world is to run again, to make for the passage and step out onto the grass on the other side. The most he manages that night is a light doze, the peace of which is sporadically shattered by thunder and the growling of the mountains peaks, weary of the storm.

He rises with the sun, delighted to see the cloud cover has lightened into a harmless white, shaking the water and sleet off the tent and all but runs up the mountain. He is tired, but the eggs in his backpack have gained strange, Charles-like voices in his mind, urging him back to the valley. Them and Raven, both, push him further and faster, so he makes it back to the house a full day ahead of his plan. It turns out to be a good thing: Charles meets them both in the middle of the meadow, throwing himself at Erik and clinging to his waist for a long moment.

“You came back!” he cries, burrowing his face into Erik’s sweater, as his tail wraps itself firmly around Erik’s ankle. “I waited and waited and I was so scared, but you came back!”

Erik doesn’t know what to say, other than “I promised,” so he puts up with the cuddling until Raven worms her way into Charles’ arms and he sits back on his haunches to cradle her instead.

The sky is grey above them, not that it’s a shock – the snowfall has been starting on the other side, it was only a matter of time before the valley submitted to winter. Sure enough, as Erik looks up there are the first snowflakes drifting his way, spiralling gently on the breeze, light as feathers. Charles follows his gaze after a while and jumps onto his feet, grabs Erik’s hand and starts running home, diving for the safety of the living room, never letting Raven out of his grip. The three of them are sitting under the table, huddled into a troll-ball before Charles dares to inch out and tip-toe to the window.

“What happened?” Erik asks, crawling out again. He leaves the backpack under the table, under Raven’s watchful eye. “What did you see?”

“The sky is falling,” Charles says in a panicked whisper. His paw closes around Erik’s fingers. “The sky is falling down!”

His face is fuzzy and devastated and it would break anyone’s heart, and in fact does, a little, but Erik desperately tries not to laugh. It’s harder than it seems at first glance, but the sheer terror that he sees glimmering in Charles’ eyes, contrasted with the cause of it, well, Erik does find that humorous. “Come on,” he says, pulling Charles towards the door, encountering considerable resistance. Not from the door, which opens easily, but from the silly troll, who digs his heels into the floorboards and has to be tugged outside with force. They skip down the porch, to the frosted grass, where the snow is pouring now, coming down in enormous swirls and covering the patches of ice. “It’s fine. It’s just snow.”

Charles tries to huddle in on himself, and stay as close to Erik as physically possible, but at the latter’s urging he sticks out a paw and a handful of flakes lands on his fur, melting into miniscule droplets moments after the contact is made. “It’s water,” he says in a voice that’s heady with relief. “It looks like pieces of the sky, but it’s just water.”

“Have you never seen snow?”

Charles nods. “This is snow then. I didn’t know it fell. I thought it grew on the ground, like the ice flowers. I don’t always see snow. Not every year.”

Erik sees now how tired Charles looks. His blue eyes are rimmed with reddish brown, and the fur covering him is less sleek and shiny than it has been when he left. His paws tremble, as he waves the falling flakes aside, and when he yawns it takes both of them to cover his mouth. “I’m sorry. I’m sleepy.”

“Didn’t you sleep well?”

“I was worried I might not wake up if I fall asleep. I waited for you,” Charles says. “I worried. Are you and Raven okay?” He kneads Erik’s sleeve and stares up into his eyes, and Erik feels himself flushing.

“We found the eggs,” Erik starts saying, but Charles is already looking over his shoulder and away. 

“It’s the Frost,” he whispers, curling his fingers into Erik’s sweater. “She’s coming here.”

She is indeed coming, slender, white and fearsome like the winter itself. She is taller now than she has been in the summer and her skirt is wider; her long hair trails down her back and onto the ground, caressing the grass it paints white. By all rights she should be terrifying, except this time she holds a black bundle in her hands. The bundle is woollen, Erik realises, and then starts when he recognises his old sweater, which was later knitted into Charles’ scarf. The Frost pauses a few steps before them, holding out the bundle, until Charles walks to her and takes it from her hands, and starts unwrapping the wool without taking a step back. He sways on his feet but he makes no move other than to pick at the frosted edges of the scarf, until it is unfolding in his paws, revealing the prize inside.

“It’s the egg,” he says in wonder. “It’s the egg we got from the Moirasmith. You brought it back!” He cradles it to his chest and smiles up at the Frost. “Thank you! Thank you so much!” He seems to remember then his own words about eggs and the cold, because he takes off running and all but dives for the basement, leaving Erik standing a few yards away from the porch, with the Frost solemn and gleaming at his side.

“Do you want some more crystals?” Erik asks, because the shiny ornaments of Charles’ chandelier hang from her ears, brushing her white shoulders, catching what little sunlight is there. It’s amazing, but despite her footsteps leaving snow-flowers in her wake the snow avoids her, swirling around her form and landing on Erik and the grass and the porch instead. “You could make bracelets out of them.”

The Frost looks at him for the longest while, with her eyeless face, and nods. Erik leads her inside, so she can have her pick, and this time she takes a length of the small crystals on a delicate chain that hangs between the arms of the chandelier. She walks away as she always does, calm, unbothered by the weather, the snow and the two small trolls she leaves behind. Erik watches to make sure she leaves, or so he tells himself. “Thank you,” he yells when she is a safe distance away. 

He gets back into the house and then down the steps into the basement, collecting the backpack along the way. Charles is fussing over the two eggs in the makeshift nest, arranging the hot bottle and a blanket to his satisfaction. He can’t seem to cease touching them, and it breaks Erik’s heart to imagine the weeks he spent along in the house, with only the goats for company. He doesn’t let himself think of the years that preceded his arrival, for fear he might start crying, instead he just pulls out the three eggs he found and presents them without a word. Charles explodes in cheers and then tears at the sight, pressing each in turn against his cheek, and adds them to the nest. He yawns again, and chokes on the next yawn, which is so wide it threatens to split his head open. 

“You should sleep,” Erik says, and Charles nods.

“I should. It’s late. I never stay up this late. Will you stay? The house is warm, I think. There’s the fireplace and the stove, and you can always stay in here, if you get cold. Don’t be cold. Trolls die of coldness. I read it in a book. You go to sleep and you never wake up, except you’re not warm and soft and snoring, you are cold and dead. There is food in the pantry and there are the goats and the chickens keep laying eggs throughout the winter. Will you stay?” Charles’ paw grips Erik’s wrist and he nods.

Charles sags in relief and Erik thinks he fell asleep right then and there, with his forehead propped on Erik’s shoulder, but after a few seconds Charles starts moving again, trudging wearily up the stairs with Raven curled on top of his head once more. Erik follows him to the kitchen, where Charles pours a few spoonfuls of needles out of a small jar into a teacup and slowly eats them, chewing with his eyes closed. “It keeps my belly full through the winter,” he explains when he opens his eyes and sees Erik staring into the jar dubiously and chewing on a bitter needle. He doesn’t look too stable, or so Erik excuses holding on to his paw while descending back into the basement. Charles makes himself comfortable inside the pile of blankets, depositing the hot water bottle right outside. 

“Sleep well,” Erik says as Charles’ eyes close and he curls over the five eggs. 

“Have a good winter,” Charles mutters, but by the time he gets to “winter” he is already asleep. The frown on his face smoothens and his paws curl closer to his body, as does his tail. By the time Erik is done trying to thank him, he is a round, furry ball of a Moomin, curled protectively over the five eggs. Erik pulls the covers towards himself, until Charles is hidden inside a padded tent of quilts and pillows. The tiny, fat stove is cracking with the fire inside its belly, filling the small room with pleasant warmth and the smell of pine. It will continue radiating heat for hours yet, and even when it dies, the little room is covered with earth and snow, protected from the outside world. There is nothing to do, it seems, but wait.

Raven chirps on Erik’s shoulder. “You don’t sleep?” he asks her. 

She makes a noise which Erik has learned means food is required. It is fortunate, as his belly is also aching for something substantial, so with some reluctance he leaves Charles alone and climbs into the kitchen, where some industrious army of trolls has stored a whole fleet of fish, both smoked and salted, vegetables and even several large double-baked fruitcakes. A quick inspection of the cheese hut reveals three fresh wheels of cheese maturing on the shelves, with the oldest moved to the lowest. There is a mound of hay in the goat shed, which Mags and Cer pick at half-heartedly, as they judge Erik’s efforts to inspect the shed top to bottom. He knows about clouds and he has reasons to believe the winter will be harsh, and the shed is shabby, even to his inexpert eye, regardless of what some opinionated goats have to say about his expertise. The henhouse fares better, but then it is fairly new. There are iron fixtures holding it together, which Erik recognises as Logan’s work. It makes sense, if Charles has never left the valley, that the chickens only appeared when Logan brought them, and it makes sense that he would help with the shed, since Charles is inept at woodwork.

Erik resolves to tear the henhouse down and rebuild it from scratch at the earliest possible time.

Raven chirps again, this time nipping on Erik’s ear, so he returns to the kitchen and cooks a soup with fresh fish, which he finds in a bucket by the stove, thyme and potatoes, which Raven happily gobbles down, though it isn’t half as delicious as the ones Charles made. 

(Later, when Erik is bold enough to spend time in the house, rather than treat it as an extended hallway between the basement and the goat shed, he will find a stack of cards, tied of with string, each containing a recipe for a simple dish that any troll could easily make. Some of the cards are yellow with age and written in a loopy, careless script, while the newer ones bear small, even letters, with only the occasional loop. The ink on the latter smears easily when he handles them with insufficient amount of care; Charles must have written those while Erik was away, he thinks, and feels warm all over, especially near his chest. Erik spends much of the winter learning how to cook)

He washes and dries the dishes, then tidies the kitchen, trying to leave it as clean as it was when he arrived. It’s hard, when every one of his instincts tells him to get away from this house, which belongs to another troll, and thus he has no business being inside. The host is sleeping, and though he has been invited, the host is sleeping and it is not right to be in a house of a sleeping troll, even if said troll asked.

The darkness sets early, and Erik spends some time building up a fire in the fireplace. He stays there for a few hours, drinking hot tea and munching on a piece of fruitcake in between reading, while Raven picks the crumbs and dried berries off his plate, though she insists on having her own cup, which she uses as a source of warmth to curl around.

Erik builds his tent beside the porch. The moon is high and half-full so the night is bright, especially with the sheen of white snow covering every surface. The earth isn’t too frozen yet to dig the poles in, but he is close to the building, so he uses the porch to tie off the ends of the tarp. It is best that he remains as close as possible, in case Charles wakes up, or something happens, he tells himself, as he lines the tent with hay and a thick quilt. The combined isolation from the ground, the quilt and the tea will keep him warm, even if Raven chirps and yips and otherwise makes enough noise to wake the sleeping trolls when he begins construction. She disappears once he’s ready to settle, but when Erik goes looking, he finds her batting at the closed door to the basement. Once he opens them, she flies straight into the mound of blankets and wiggles inside. When Erik peels them back he sees she’s curled up in the crook of Charles’ shoulder and won’t be budged.

“But you can’t!” Erik starts saying, then he remembers she probably wintered here more than a few times, and thus that’s what they normally do. She looks perfectly snug where she tucks herself, half-hidden in the velvety fur. Erik envies her for a few moments. She won’t be cold no matter the weather during the night, not even if the fire dies out.

He goes to his tent, trying not to think how warm the little room downstairs was, or the faint whiff of pine and flowers that permeated every piece of fabric in Charles’ house, and Charles himself. To be fair the smell is with him all the time, because the quilt has been washed, so he falls asleep in his cold tent, dreaming of dried fish and potatoes. 

A few weeks later, at Raven’s urging (which manifests as the persistent attempts to gnaw Erik’s ears off), he stays inside the house. He spends the first hour past bedtime staring at his tent through the window. His hands are curled around a warm up of tea and he stares at the tip on the pole which holds the construction together, at the sparkling dust of snow which covers it. There is his tent, outside, in the snow, and here he is, watching it from behind a window. He is in some troll’s house, he tells himself again and again. It is well past sundown, not that it means anything, because the day is so short, but it is past sundown and he is in some troll’s house, wrapped in his quilt and drinking his tea. Erik doesn’t sleep much that night. He stays up in the wide armchair, staring at the faded portrait on the wall, where a couple of august Moomintrolls sit on this very armchair, with a third troll, a tiny creature, no bigger than a rabbit, seated between them. Both the adult trolls are naked and nearly identical, save for the hue of their fur, though one wears a top hat and the other has a few ropes of pearls looped around the neck. There are no expressions on their faces, which must be because of the artist’s deficiencies, as Charles is perfectly capable of emoting. Erik stands eventually and brings the candle closer to the wall, and in its light he sees that the tiny Moomin has vividly blue eyes and thick brown hair. It has to be Charles and his parents, Erik thinks in wonder and a touch of fright. He has no pictures of his parents, only memories, and in his memories mama is laughing and swatting him with the soup ladle, or handing him a spoon to lick the frosting off. Charles’ mother looks stiff and prim, tied in place by her pearls, and the tiny Charles is solemn, sitting with his paws neatly folded on his knees.

Erik closes his eyes and hopes for spring, when they could both laugh and run to the stream, to pick berries in the summer and mushrooms in the autumn.

*****

It takes a week for the frost to truly set in, but when it does the valley is covered by a layer of snow that makes Erik’s tent inaccessible. Luckily, by that time Erik has moved into the house permanently. The mattresses in the guest rooms are soft and fragrant with the promise of hay in the middle of a hot summer, but Erik is perfectly happy on the couch, close to the fireplace. He milks the goats every morning, and by the dark time he manages to come up with an acceptable cheese wheel, even though it is runny in places and probably wouldn’t mature well, even if he hasn’t eaten most of it fresh, with a spoonful of honey. He collects the eggs, too, which he eats for breakfast more often than not (Charles’ cellar holds an inexhaustible supply of onions, and fried onion and scrambled eggs is not a dish Erik will get tired of anytime soon).

Halfway through January the cover of snow reaches the first floor, and the night takes permanent residence in the living room. Erik wakes up in the morning to find he has to trek through the tunnel which connects the kitchen with the sheds before he even sees sunlight, and prepare breakfast for himself and Raven. He leaves Mags, Cer and the chickens to fend for themselves, as Charles left hay and seed for them readily available, and they have access to snow in case they want water, as there’s no way to get out into the valley except through the second floor windows. They seem happy enough, huddling close in the shed which is still warm, despite the snow that blankets it on either side, but then it is the province of goats to make any space liveable.

In the evening, like every day, Erik checks up on Charles. He lights up the fire in the small stove, waiting until the orange glow reaches every floorboard, and then he starts peeling back the covers to make sure Charles is still asleep and that the eggs are still fine. Raven joins him in the exercise, though she chooses to remain when he is done checking. Every evening she curls up in the warm cocoon Charles’ furry arms provide, leaving Erik to trudge upstairs, onto the couch which will turn warm once he sleeps on it, but which starts off very uninviting indeed.

*****

It is a cold winter storm that finally drives Erik to hide in the basement. He spent very little time in houses, so when the first howl of wind hits the rooftop he trembles, because the house shudders and groans like a living thing. He flees and hides, blessing the wisdom of the Moomin family, which built their winter shelter in the basement, safe from all harm. He takes his quilt with him and tries to make himself comfortable on the rug in front of the buzzing stove, but Raven won’t let him rest in peace. She tugs and nips on his ears until he abandons the quilt and comes to stand before Charles’ mound of pillows and covers, undecided. Another cracking boom makes the construction shudder to its bones, and even though he knows the house must be sturdy enough to withstand it, and if it should fall, the basement is underground, Erik clenches his eyes shut and crawls into the warmth, settling against Charles. He can feel the hard shells of the eggs against his side, and the way Charles’ tummy moulds to accommodate them.

He resolves to keep his vigil, to make up for the terrible breach in propriety, but before the thought is fully formed, the warmth claims him completely. Erik sleeps like a baby that night, warm, safe and comfortable, surrounded from all sides by the plush warmth of Charles’ velvety fur and the softness of blankets.

He doesn’t have the heart to resist when Raven pulls and pushes and nags him into the basement the following night, though the storm has passed and he has no more excuse to hide. 

Early in February Charles develops a case of the snuffles. Erik wakes to the sound of short, distressed breathing, which sends his heart racing. Charles doesn’t wake up though, even though his brows furrow and he continues to snuffle, even as he turns onto his tummy, and stretches out as though he was trying to swim.

The weeks pass, and eventually Erik wakes up to find that there is sunshine in the living room, and the snow is receding. The winds turn warm and the river begins to sing as it carries away the ice and cold. The first flowers start to poke through the still rigid earth, fighting for the scant amounts of sunlight, and then Charles wakes up, late in March. It comes as a surprise. Erik makes himself breakfast and eats it on the porch, though it is still a little too cold for that. He is scraping the remains of the porridge out of the bowl (one of the discoveries he makes this winter is that he adores porridge, especially when there are currants and honey to add to it) when he hears a sound of cloth dragged over the stairs. He stands so quickly he upturns his empty bowl over Raven, trapping her beneath, and there is Charles, rubbing the sleep out of his eyes and blinking at him in wonder.

“Erik!” he cries, throwing his arms around Erik’s neck. “You stayed!”

This time Erik puts his arms around him consciously, strokes his back, and smiles into the furry shoulder. “Did you sleep well?” he asks.

“It was wonderful,” Charles says. “I am so hungry. Was everything okay? Did you find the food? Did you have trouble with Mags? Are you fine?”

“They were kind,” Erik says, because even though Mags did make milking impossible, there was a never ending stream of affection from both the goats that made it bearable. They missed Charles, it was obvious, but in his absence they were willing to cuddle with whomever turned their hay and brought them apples. “I just ate porridge. There’s still some in the pot.”

“Brilliant,” Charles says and beams.

The eggs hatch shortly afterwards. Charles finds an old volume that is some form of an encyclopaedia, and reads excerpts about Moomins. The eggs listen to the heartbeat of the parent who sleeps on them, the book says, and usually hatch shortly after the parent wakes up. Typically the younglings are ready to hatch by the mark of the third month of hibernation, though it’s very rare for the hatchlings to begin clawing at their shells before the parent is awake. Even less likely is the scenario that they stay asleep once the parent is awake. Erik nods wisely, makes some tea and settles on the couch, from which he is roused by Charles’ delighted chirps.

He nearly trips in his haste to get downstairs. He finds Charles kneeling by the nest, staring in wonder at the five eggs contained within. The process is a little slow, so by the time the faint crack manages to become a removable piece Erik goes back upstairs and returns with more breakfast, thinking quite correctly that after a whole winter with bellyful of pine needles, Charles will want something tasty to chase down the congealed porridge. He brings fruitcake and hot milk, which Charles nibbles on while he stares at the cracking eggs.

The first little Moomin to hatch is barely bigger than a large mouse; its fur is an acorn brown, with what looks like even darker lines forming a spider web across its back and shoulders. Charles reaches out and brushes its wet cheek in glee. “Erik,” he says, as the tiny Moomintroll clambers onto his hand for a hug. “This is a girl-troll!”

Erik is consumed by a wild bout of jealousy. A girl-troll means more eggs in the future, more than the ones he manages to find. There will be no more Snufkin trolls. He would storm away to brood, but as it happens Charles looks up at him and utter happiness pours out of him in waves that trample through his mood.

“It’s wonderful,” he says honestly, with only trace amounts of jealousy. Unfortunately for his carefully cultivated moods Charles and the new Moomin-girl snuggle up to him, in a group effort to make him feel less alone.

He is ashamed to admit it works wonderfully, and even Raven forgives him eventually, once she is released from underneath the porridge bowl. 

Three more eggs hatch in the end: all three boy-trolls, according to Charles. Erik can’t see the difference, same as he only knows Raven is female (or Charles male, for that matter) because Charles told him so. There is a sand-coloured Moomin and a Moomin the colour of a setting sun and one that is a warm brown of pine bark. The fifth egg, the one Charles bought from the Frost, doesn’t hatch that day, or on any of the following, even though it is relocated to Charles’ bed. Erik removes it from there eventually, because despite the four restless, curious Moomin-children, who climb over both Erik and Charles given the slightest opportunity, the lifeless egg makes Charles sad. Erik hides it in a small box which is then stored with the other treasures Charles amassed.

The Moomins grow quickly, and when it is time to start thinking about their first winter sleep, Erik helps to tuck the entire Moominpile into the cosy nest. It will need expanding, once the young ones grow, because while there was space among the pillows for two adult trolls and some to spare, there would be trouble with five. He stays until they fall asleep, and then he leaves, with Raven clinging to the flap of his backpack, hurrying through the autumn frost on his way south. He returns with the spring, and for the first time in his life he understands the joy of returning home: there is a fire buzzing in the fireplace and a rowdy foursome leaping into his arms, and later, when the children grow tired, there is Charles, who hugs him tightly and says, “Welcome home,” with his soft cheek pressed against Erik’s.

Erik takes his paw and they sit by the fire, eating toasted bread with cheese and cranberry jam, and he tells the stories of what he’s seen in the summer lands, of flowers and seas and strange creatures, much bigger than the goats and even mountain trolls, and people and sand and the sun, which burns like the fiercest fire. He talks and talks, pausing now and then to allow Raven to add a puff to the tale, until the little ones fall asleep and Charles is squeezing his hand with the smallest smile on his face. They put the children to their cribs and then they go to bed, snuggling into the linen sheets which smell of pines and meadows, of warmth and spring and summer.

Erik’s tent remains safely tucked into the bottom of his backpack, awaiting the next winter.

*****

_It was only by chance that I saw my troll again, for he never returned to my shop. A few winters passed, and I worried myself sick, even though Commander Shaw assured me that he saw the two trolls disappear safely into the sewer, and that they were not pursued. It had done my heart good, to hope that even though they were forced to run, they got away safely. I repeated it to myself as often as the mood would strike, if only to stop myself from abandoning my shop to search for them. In the end, it turned out my worries were unfounded and the trolls were safe and sound._

_This is how I learned it was so: several years after the disastrous night, when two little trolls fled my shop in panic, I found myself traversing the narrow path towards the mountains. The air was wonderfully clear, as the melting snow took with it the grime that late winter piled up on the earth. I had precious little time these days for wandering, but the mountainous terrain didn’t change much throughout the years, so the spot which I so often picnicked in my younger years was undisturbed, and as welcoming as ever._

_It was luck itself that I dozed off against the rock on that sunny afternoon, I say to this day, even though I woke shaking with cold, and just as I was packing up the remains of my lunch, I looked over the boulder and saw my troll, walking merrily towards the mountains, and he was not alone. Another, much smaller troll was skipping at his side, rosy in the cheeks like a merry poppy flower, with her little coat flowing in the wind. My troll was holding her hand and speaking in a soft voice. Following them was a third troll, dressed in a muddy green coat, wearing a frown on her face. I presumed it was a woman-troll, for there were curls of auburn hair poking from under her woollen hat, even if her cloak was shapeless and worn._

_Briefly I considered speaking out, attracting their attention, as the other troll, the blue-eyed one, was absent and suddenly I felt like I could not go another day without knowing if he was fine, but then I thought how nervous they were in my company, so I said nothing. I watched the three trolls pass me by and disappear between the rocks, walking steadfastly towards the summit, certain of their destination._

_I returned home that evening cold to the bone, for I didn’t dare abandon my post until I could no longer spot the three among the rocks, but thrilled in equal measure: there were still trolls hiding in the world, and they were coming to their homes, high in the mountains._

Excerpt from _The Moonstone of the Valley_ , a beloved children’s classic, by Moira MacTaggart.

THE END.


End file.
